Baidu stresses strong data privacy measures after executive's daughter doxes netizen
Baidu , China's leading internet search firm and artificial intelligence (AI) powerhouse, has denied that the company breached user privacy after an incident involving the teenage daughter of a senior executive exposed the personal information of another netizen, triggering outrage online.
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In a statement released on Wednesday night, the Beijing-based company stressed its 'zero tolerance' policy towards breaches of user privacy and said it maintains stringent data anonymisation and access controls. It held a briefing on Thursday, hosted by its security chief Chen Yang, to reaffirm its stance and attributed the source of the leak to an overseas database of illegally obtained personal info.
The controversy began when the 13-year-old daughter of Xie Guangjun, a vice-president at Baidu, posted the information of a user online in a practice known as doxxing. Xie published a public apology for his daughter's behaviour on his WeChat account on Monday.
The incident has raised concerns about data privacy among users and poses potential business risks for Baidu, which offers cloud storage services and AI chatbot applications. Damaged trust in Baidu's security or integrity could lead to losses in user revenue.
The company stressed that no executive or employee is authorised to access private user data, and it condemned 'online actions involving theft and exposure of others' private information'.
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Seeking to restore public trust amid intensifying competition among China's AI services, Baidu established a dedicated fund to combat cybercrime and announced plans to form an 'anti-doxxing' alliance aimed at tackling illegal data theft and leaks, according to the company.
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