User Privacy and Data Protection

Data for Social Good

Data is inseparable from daily life. Be it something as simple as booking a flight or looking up a restaurant review, almost every action we take online, and increasingly offline, produces data. Data can help companies improve their products and services. But data can also be misused or mishandled, a practice that has unfortunately become more common.

At Tencent, we have always subscribed to the principle of “Data for Social Good,” whereby we use data to benefit users — to improve the products and services they use — and in strict accordance with applicable laws and regulations. This principle ensures that users’ data remains private and protected. We believe that protecting the privacy of user data is essential to creating a safe, world-class product and user experience.

Our Approach

Our approach to data protection is supported by the widely espoused “Privacy by Design” concept, which dictates that all our products and services are designed with privacy protection from the outset. This concept was the inspiration behind our “Person-Button-Data” approach, which illustrates how we think about data protection.

“Person” refers to how the needs of our users are central to everything we do. Core to this user focus is the notion of transparency and our commitment to letting users know how their data is used.
“Button” is the universal symbol of user control and a reminder of our commitment to providing users with the ability to manage their data in a way that is easy, even seamless — like the click of a button.
“Data” refers to our thorough and cutting-edge security technology and management protocols. Together, these provide threat monitoring as well as defense and response mechanisms to safeguard user data in the event of a breach.

The Person-Button-Data approach is applied across our entire product portfolio.

Our technologies

User data is protected by high-level security technologies that extend across all our products and services during the entire data life cycle. This includes ensuring secure technical measures and policies are in place during the stages of data creation/collection, transmission, storage, usage, sharing/transfers, and destruction. In addition, where appropriate, we also leverage AI and other innovative technologies to enhance our protection against cybersecurity threats.

Our security technology is supported by:

Our round-the-clock Security Platform Department, made up of some of the world’s leading data security experts, who also cooperate with security researchers and partners all around the world through our online Tencent Security Response Center (TSRC) platform;
Our United Security Lab, a set of seven dedicated facilities focused on researching and developing technologies to protect data in the event of a security lapse or targeted attack;
Our innovative housekeeping tools, Tencent PC Manager and Tencent Mobile Manager, which actively ensure that private terminal data is kept secure;

Manage Your Privacy

We believe that users should be able to manage their own data, which is why our products and services include a wealth of user controls. Within our products and services, users can easily manage how much of their data is collected, used and shared.

For example, our social platforms Weixin/WeChat and QQ provide users with a host of privacy function settings and account security options that enable them to decide for themselves how their data is used. In line with this, we have also designed appropriate privacy settings for our internationally released games, again to provide users with more control.

Our Privacy Policy

As part of our ongoing commitment to bring more transparency to our users, we update our general Tencent group Privacy Policy from time to time. Please note that Tencent’s international products have their own product-specific privacy policies, which is separate to this general Tencent group Privacy Policy.

Our Terms of Service

As part of our ongoing commitment to bring more transparency to our users, we update our general Tencent group Terms of Service from time to time. Please note that Tencent’s international products have their own product-specific Terms of Service, which is separate to this general Tencent group Terms of Service.

Our Commitment to Improving

Tencent has been widely recognized for its data privacy protection efforts, with Weixin/WeChat and QQ having secured TrustArc and ISO/IEC 27018 accreditations, and Tencent Cloud having secured CISPE and ISO 27701 accreditations, among others.

However, we recognize that data privacy protection calls for ongoing development and refinement in response to changing laws, technologies, social norms, business needs and user demands. It is not a responsibility we take lightly. Rather, it goes to the core of everything we do and is a key part of what makes Tencent one of the world’s leading internet-based technology companies.

To learn more about how Tencent protects user privacy and data security, please go to: Service Agreement