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Chinese authorities have admitted that they can retrieve deleted WeChat messages from suspected individuals’ phones. The admission came through a government watchdog through social media posts made on Monday, which were first seen by the South China Morning Post.
WeChat's expansion plans might be impeded if users think they can be tracked.
Image credit: Álvaro Ibáñez via Flickr / CC by 2.0
“WeChat does not store any chat histories - they are only stored on users’ phones and computers,” Tencent, the company that owns WeChat, had said earlier. But many have questioned this stance earlier and it turns out that they were right. “WeChat will not use any content from user chats for big data analysis,” Tencent had said in response to Li Shufu, a Chinese auto industry executive who had said that the company “must be watching all out WeChats every day.”
Tencent’s statement came a day after the party graft-buster in southeastern Hefei, Anhui province announced in a social media post that the branch in a neighboring city had obtained deleted chats from a suspect.
The revelation has led to discussions on the Internet in China, allowing Users have been talking on various forums and it could be damaging for WeChat in future. While not many would be surprised that Chinese authorities have ways to monitor its own citizens, but WeChat does have expansion plans for other countries, which might be impeded if users think they can be tracked.
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