Chinese regulators have reprimanded some of the country’s biggest technology companies for weak protection of user data, about a year after the government cracked down on a large batch of apps for breach of personal information. The rebuke was made by Lu Chuncong, deputy director of the Information and Communications Administration under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), at a meeting on Friday in Beijing, where he accused major app operators of flouting government orders to tighten consumer data privacy. That comes after the China Cybersecurity Centre penalised 100 apps , across a range of industries from e-commerce to banking, for incorrect collection of personal data, lack of privacy agreements and ambiguous rules in November of last year. At the meeting, Lu said an official review of popular apps found many still lacked tight personal data protection, according to a report by Chinese media Paper.cn . Those include 40 apps from Alibaba Group Holding , 30 each from TikTok operator ByteDance and Tencent Holdings , 20 from Baidu , and 10 each from Xiaomi Corp and NetEase , which were found to have weak personal data protection. Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post . The MIIT confirmed on Friday the meeting with app operators, but declined to provide details. Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu and ByteDance did not immediately respond to requests for comment. China’s ‘wild era’ of internet may be ending as new personal data protection law seeks to curb Big Tech’s control over user data Privacy infringements and information breaches have become hot-button issues in mainland China, as the country continues to digitise its economy. In November of last year, Chinese authorities requested internet companies to strengthen protection of personal data amid concerns that some have been stealing, trading or revealing personal information in the name of conducting big data research. Early last year, the China Consumers Association warned that a large number of smartphone apps in the country were collecting an excessive amount of personal data , including user location, contact lists and mobile numbers. Lu, according to the Paper.cn report, said a previous investigation of popular apps by the MIIT identified three types of issues: “ideological disregard”, “fluke psychology”, and “technical confrontation”. He did not elaborate. The MIIT had used “fluke psychology” in a post on its website after a meeting on July 29 with representatives from 30 major internet companies, as a warning that the firms should not think they can easily pass the scrutiny of regulators. Those companies – including Alibaba, Baidu, ByteDance, Xiaomi, Pinduoduo and Meituan – were directed to rectify a number of issues on their apps, such as mishandling of personal data, frequent harassment of users and deceiving consumers. Google removes Baidu apps in wake of Palo Alto research report which said they collected sensitive data The Information and Communications Administration launched a new investigation on smartphone apps in June this year, after the state broadcaster reported violations of users’ rights, according to a post from the MIIT’s website on June 12. The MIIT said in the post that it summoned the relevant companies in a meeting and ordered them to fix the identified user privacy issues by June 17. It did not identify the companies at the time, but said “those who failed to rectify their problems will be subject to punishment”. Nearly 100 per cent of 900 million Chinese internet users used smartphones to surf online, according to a report last year by the Personal Information Protection Task Force on Apps, an affiliated organisation with the National Information Security Standardisation Technical Committee.