What you need to know
- Chinese authorities have told Apple to remove an Uber competitor from the App Store over data privacy concerns.
- Didi Chuxing is an app that Apple previously invested $1 billion into.
Apple has been told that it needs to remove the Didi Chuxing app from the Chinese App Store after concerns were raised about its misuse of personal data. The app, an Uber competitor, also happens to be owned by Didi Global, a company that Apple previously invested $1 billion into.
According to a Bloomberg report, the Cyberspace Administration of China announced the ban yesterday, saying that the app violates laws surrounding the collection and usage of personal information. It didn't go into details about what that actually meant, however. It does mean that Apple and other app store owners will have to remove the app while remedial changes are carried out.
Notably, the investigation into the app's data handling was only announced just two days earlier, making an unusually quick outcome.
For its part, Didi Chuxing's social media has already put out an update saying that user registrations have been halted and that a newly updated app is being worked on.
On Sunday, the company said on social media that it had already halted new user registrations as of July 3 and was now working to rectify its app in accordance with regulatory requirements.
It's unlikely that the move has any relation to Apple's $1 billion investment into the app and its parent company, although it remains to be seen whether this news has any impact on that relationship given Apple's stance on user privacy.
Apple's investment, made back in 2017, was said to be a way for the company to gain insights into the Chinese market, a market that will surely see the launch of the iPhone 13 lineup this September. The device will be the /best iPhone yet in terms of capability and performance, with a rumored 120Hz display set to being a high refresh rate to the lineup for the first time.
