Last Updated: 29 February 2024
This Privacy Policy explains the when, how and why when it comes to the processing of your personal information in connection with the WeChat Help Center accessible here (the “WeChat Help Center”), and sets out your choices and rights in relation to that information.
If you do not agree to the processing of your personal information in the way this Privacy Policy describes, please do not provide your information when requested. By submitting your information on the WeChat Help Center you are acknowledging how we process your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy.
For the purpose of data protection laws, the data controller of your personal information in relation to the WeChat Help Center is Tencent International Service Europe B.V. (if you are located in the European Economic Economic Area (“the EEA”), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ("the UK") or Switzerland) or WeChat International Pte. Ltd. (if you are located outside of the EEA, the UK, Switzerland, or the Chinese Mainland) (“we”, “us”, “our”).
If you have any questions about anything in this Privacy Policy, or want to exercise any rights you may have, you can reach out to our data protection officer using our contact information here.
1. How We Process Your Personal Information
This section provides more detail on the types of personal information we collect from you, and why. Children must not submit their information on the WeChat Help Center.
Personal Information | Use | Legal Basis (where applicable) |
|---|---|---|
Information you submit on the WeChat Help Center (including your contact information and preferences, feedback, and any screenshots you choose to upload) | We use this information to:
| Necessary to perform our contract with you to provide customer service and support WeChat. It is in our legitimate interest to improve our services. |
Subsequent correspondence between you and the WeChat customer service team (email or WeChat conversations, and recordings of telephone conversations between you and the WeChat customer service team (if applicable)) |
2. How We Store and Share Your Personal Information
Pursuant to our contract with you, we may transfer data outside of the location in which you are based for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. Your personal data will be stored on servers in Singapore and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region ("Hong Kong SAR"). We also have support, engineering and other teams who may support the WeChat Help Center, including from Singapore and the Netherlands, who may have access to your information. For EEA/UK users, transfers between our affiliates and to third parties use applicable safeguards, such as incorporating standard contractual clauses, obtaining your consent first or taking into account adequacy assessments
Only where necessary will we share your personal information with third parties. Situations where this occur are:
Third parties that provide services in support of the WeChat Help Center.
Companies within our corporate group who process your personal information solely for the purpose of supporting the WeChat Help Center. All such group companies may only use your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Regulators, judicial authorities and law enforcement agencies. There are circumstances in which we may be legally required to disclose information about you, such as to comply with legal obligations or processes. In complying with the terms of valid legal processes, such as a subpoena, or search warrant, unfortunately we may not be able to seek your consent to or notify you in advance of such disclosure.
Third parties to ensure safety, security, or compliance with laws. We may disclose your information to: (a) enforce our terms and conditions and other agreements, including investigation of any potential violation thereof; (b) detect, prevent or otherwise address security, fraud or technical issues; or (c) protect the rights, property or safety of us, our users, a third party or the public as required or permitted by law (such as exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction).
A third party that acquires all or substantially all of us or our business. We may also disclose your information to third parties if we either: (a) sell, transfer, merge, consolidate or re-organise any part(s) of our business, or merge with, acquire or form a joint venture with, any other business, in which case we may disclose your data to any prospective buyer, new owner, or other third party involved in such change to our business; or (b) sell or transfer any of our assets, in which case the information we hold about you may be sold as part of those assets and may be transferred to any prospective buyer, new owner, or other third party involved in such sale or transfer.
3. The Security of Your Personal Information
We have information security and access policies that limit access to our systems and technology, and we protect data through the use of technological protection measures such as encryption.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will implement and maintain reasonable measures to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of the information transmitted as part of the WeChat Help Center or otherwise via the Internet; any transmission is at your own risk.
4. Data Retention
We keep your data for as long as necessary or permitted for the purposes described above, or for a period in which we reasonably foresee continuing to provide our customer service to you. Even after we provide customer service to you, or if you are a WeChat user, after you delete your account, we may be required or permitted to keep your data for a longer period, for example, to comply with our legal obligations, or in relation to litigation, investigations or to protect against legal claims. If we retain your information beyond the retention period as set out above, for example to comply with applicable laws, we will store it separately from other types of personal information.
5. Your Rights
You may have certain rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you. Some of these only apply in certain circumstances (as set out in more detail below). You can exercise some of these rights directly by accessing and updating the information in your account. If you believe we hold any other personal information about you, please contact us.
You may have the right to access personal information we hold about you, how we use it, and who we share it with.
You may have the right to receive a copy of certain personal information we process about you. We will provide further information to you about transferring this data if you make such a request.
You may have the right to correct personal information we hold that is inaccurate.
You may be able to delete certain personal information we hold about you by contacting us. We may need to retain personal information if there are valid grounds under data protection laws for us to do so but we will let you know if that is the case.
You may have a right to require that we stop processing the personal information we hold about you (other than for storage purposes in certain circumstances). Please note, however, that if we stop processing the personal information, we may use it again if there are valid grounds under data protection laws for us to do so.
You may have the right to object to our processing of your personal information. If you wish to do so, please contact us, and we will consider your request.
6. Contact
Please get in touch with us if you have any questions. You can reach us in the first instance at:
Email: dataprotection@wechat.com
Mailing Address: Buitenveldertselaan 1-5, 1082 VA, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Attention: Data Protection Officer, Legal Department)
7. Changes
If we make any changes to this Privacy Policy we will post the updated Privacy Policy here and notify you in accordance with relevant legal requirements.
