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WeChat
SOCIAL & MESSAGING
LAST UPDATED 1 AUG 2026

WHAT THE POLICIES SAY

WeChat is the international edition of Tencent's messaging and payments platform, whose privacy policy describes collecting registration and log-in data, log data including device attributes and communication metadata, location data from GPS, WiFi, IP address or geo-tagged posts, chat data, and payment card information, with data controllers split between a Singaporean entity for most international users and a Dutch entity for Europe, and intra-group flows to Shenzhen Tencent Computer Systems in the Chinese Mainland. In May 2020 the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab published research finding that documents and images sent entirely between non-China-registered accounts undergo content surveillance for material politically sensitive in China, that this surveillance is functionally undetectable to users and disclosed in no policy document, and that it is used to build up the censorship system applied to China-registered users; Tencent's responses to data access requests failed to clarify the practice.

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[2026-04-07] · COLLECTION
WeChat's international privacy policy, last updated 2026-04-07, states that it collects registration and log-in data including name, mobile number, IP address and account identifiers; log data covering device attributes, viewing history and communication metadata; location data derived from GPS, WiFi, IP address or geo-tagged posts; chat data and contact information; and payment card information for verification.
wechat.com ↗
[2026-04-07] · OWNERSHIP TRANSPARENCY
WeChat's privacy policy identifies its data controllers as Tencent International Service Europe B.V., a Dutch company, for users in the EEA, United Kingdom and Switzerland, and WeChat International Pte. Ltd., a Singaporean company, for users elsewhere outside the Chinese Mainland -- the international arms of Tencent's dual WeChat/Weixin structure.
wechat.com ↗
[2020-05-07] · SHARING
The Citizen Lab's research found that content surveilled from communications among non-China-registered accounts is used to train and build up the censorship system WeChat applies to China-registered users -- a use of international users' data disclosed in none of WeChat's public-facing policy documents.
citizenlab.ca ↗
[2026-04-07] · SHARING
WeChat's privacy policy states that information is not shared with third parties except where needed to provide the service, naming SMS providers and payment processors, while disclosing that information flows within the corporate group to Shenzhen Tencent Computer Systems Company Limited, located in the Chinese Mainland, for interoperability with Weixin and technical support.
wechat.com ↗
[2020-05-07] · TRACK RECORD
The Citizen Lab reported that Tencent's responses to formal data access requests, made under Canadian privacy law, failed to clarify how data from international users is used to enable political censorship, and that Tencent did not provide meaningful responses to questions sent about the report's findings.
citizenlab.ca ↗
[2020-05-07] · TRACKING TECH
The Citizen Lab's report "We Chat, They Watch", published 2020-05-07 (Knockel, Parsons, Ruan, Xiong, Crandall, Deibert), found through technical experiments that documents and images transmitted entirely among non-China-registered WeChat accounts undergo content surveillance in which the files are analysed for content politically sensitive in China, that this surveillance operates without user notification, and that surveillance between non-China accounts is functionally undetectable.
citizenlab.ca ↗
LAST REVIEWED 2026-08-01 · METHODOLOGY v1.7