According to Statista, WeChat has over 1.31 billion active monthly users.
While this multi-functional social media platform’s wide reach means that your employees can easily collaborate, share files, provide support to customers, and even perform impactful marketing campaigns, the app’s adoption also brings with it a variety of compliance challenges for companies.
The spate of cybersecurity-focused regulations unleashed by China means that businesses will have a harder time using and retaining data in WeChat. There is also the issue of WeChat users mixing personal and business matters since one-third of all mobile traffic in China goes through the app. As a result, companies with employees who actively use WeChat have a tough time investigating internal issues.
Here, we explore the regulations and other reasons that have made WeChat archiving for employee monitoring and compliance more challenging, how these factors affect companies in the US and Europe, and how businesses can use WeChat in a manner that is compliant with Chinese law.
Key hurdles faced by companies when it comes to using and retaining data in WeChat
Government regulations directed at protecting the privacy
The Chinese government recently put in place the Personal Information Protection Law and the Data Security Law, which will undoubtedly make WeChat compliance harder for companies, especially the ones based outside China.
Notably, the Data Security Law lays down the framework for classifying all the data collected and stored in China based on the national security implications. Based on the potential impact of this data, the law specifies how it is supposed to be stored and transferred.
Meanwhile, the Personal Information Protection Law was brought into effect to regulate how companies collect, store, and use the personal information of people in China. The laws also restrict the flow of data from China to abroad. All personal information and data critical to the country’s security and interests are supposed to be stored in servers located in mainland China. Companies that want to transfer data outside China need to go through a rigorous security review and get authorization from the government.
Crucially, companies now require the consent of individuals to gather and use personal data. It is worth mentioning that consent isn’t required if the information is anonymized.
Because of this, companies need to inform and get the consent of customers before business text archiving to comply with US and EU regulations that require archiving and monitoring of WeChat communication.
Regulatory authorities, including the SEC and FINRA, require companies, especially the ones operating in the finance sector, to keep a record of employee calls and texts made via WeChat. However, China’s data privacy policies get in the way of collecting WeChat communication data. This is largely due to the fact that most conversations on WeChat occur on the personal phones of employees and outside of the corporate network.
To ensure that companies don’t run afoul of Chinese regulators, they also need to warn their employees and customers about posting content that the government deems unacceptable. Additionally, companies are required by law to preserve records of all communication done via WeChat for the authorities.
China’s strict e-discovery policies
A massive challenge when it comes to using and retaining data from WeChat for e-discovery purposes is that China has different, stricter principles for handling information from China. The nation has a vague definition for “state secrets”, which are supposed to be confidential when a company is capturing WeChat conversations.
Broadly speaking, a state secret can be any piece of information whose leakage can harm the country’s national security or interests in areas, such as foreign affairs, economics, politics, and defense. As a result, companies using WeChat can face stiff penalties if they are not careful and retain data through measures like call archiving that may fall into the above-mentioned categories.
Monitoring of business communication
Companies using WeChat for official communication need to deal with another major issue when it comes to their data security. WeChat is said to monitor all communication happening within it, even if it is by people outside China. Besides, the app automatically censors content its algorithms deem as politically sensitive. Making matters worse, WeChat doesn’t disclose the extent of the monitoring that happens to foreign users.
Malware infections
Another major issue with using WeChat for employee communication is the possibility of malware infecting personal devices and corrupting the data within. The app is known to have security issues, such as the danger of hackers being able to embed malicious code in it that can compromise employee and customer data privacy. Because of the prevalence of these issues, companies with BYOD policies could end up with employee or customer data stolen, which could further lead to heavy fines from the Chinese authorities.
How companies can use WeChat effectively in compliance with Chinese laws
China has unusually strict laws governing data privacy and e-discovery across all business communication apps, including WeChat. Further, WeChat has proven to be susceptible to widespread monitoring by Chinese authorities and data breaches, leading to the question—is it even possible to carry out business communication via the app in a safe manner along with proper WeChat compliance monitoring?
When it comes to WeChat e-discovery, companies can follow several easy steps to steer clear of regulatory violations.
- Store the data locally in China.
- Ensure only an experienced forensic technology expert collects the necessary data.
- Have a Chinese notary monitor and approve the data collection process.
- Perform e-discovery filtering and document review before having an approved Chinese law firm do a national security review.
However, for all-around WeChat compliance, companies need a highly secure archiving solution that can record messages without compromising employees’ and users’ privacy. TeleMessage’s WeChat archiving solution allows companies to connect their employees and clients without any worries about data breaches or compliance issues in China. With the solution, companies can maintain a clear separation between private and work chats. In a mobile-first world, the TeleMessage WeChat Archiver offers the benefit of capturing and archiving text messages, voice calls, and WeChat conversations from BYOD/ corporate devices.
Importantly, you can use the WeChat Archiver to maintain records of all your business-related chats, deleted messages, multimedia, and attachments and filter the messages according to various parameters for ensuring transparency, compliance with all the regulations, including MAS, SFC, ASIC, etc., and high levels of employee’s productivity.
If these benefits sound fascinating, feel free to contact us.
