China News Service, July 13th

Question : WPS remote locks user files, is it an infringement?

  China-Singapore Finance reporter Wu Tao

  How do you feel when you have worked so hard to write a million-word document, but it is suddenly locked and cannot be accessed?

Will this situation happen, and now it has become a stone in the hearts of WPS users.

Bloggers reflect that WPS locks files

  On July 11, on a forum, a blogger posted a complaint: WPS seems to have some kind of sensitive word detection function. After being detected, it is not only stored on the cloud disk, but also locally. Files can also be locked.

A screenshot of the content posted by the blogger.


  The blogger said, "What I can't open are cloud files and local files, because they are locked, who gave it the right to spy on users' private files and handle them by themselves."

WPS response

  WPS responded that the online document link shared by a user recently was suspected of violating the law, and we have prohibited others from accessing the link in accordance with the law.

This matter is falsely rumored to be WPS deleting the user's local files, which is purely misleading.

Screenshot from WPS official Weibo.

  However, under the Weibo responded by WPS, a large number of netizens posted screenshots to reflect that not only are others prohibited from accessing the link, but the user (creator) himself can no longer access the document.

  The above-mentioned blogger stated that his files were not shared or even sold. After the complaint, WPS also admitted that it was a loophole, "WPS said the second day my files were locked that I was sharing files that triggered the block, but all the evidence proves that I I haven't shared files with the outside world. More than one million words of files have been shared with you inside WPS, who else? You can throw the blame on me."

  In this regard, a reporter from Zhongxin Finance contacted the relevant staff of WPS and asked whether the user can access it himself after external access is prohibited, whether he has the right to continue editing the document, and whether the document can be saved on the local computer?

As of press time, no relevant response has been received.

Weibo screenshot.


  Some netizens also questioned: How does WPS know the content of user documents, and is it peeping user content information?

In this regard, WPS responded that it has always put user experience and protection of user privacy first.

  However, WPS stipulates in the privacy agreement, "The relevant document materials you upload will be read and used as the basic materials for AI training after desensitization, but please rest assured that we will take security measures and technical means to protect your personal information, and will de-identify such data through technical means to reduce the risk of other organizations or individuals identifying you through de-identified personal information.”

The WPS user privacy agreement involves the description of how AI reads and uses user content.

Screenshot of WPS User Privacy Agreement


  There is a view that WPS is not necessarily a peeping user content, which may be the result of keyword big data analysis, and whether there is a possibility of "manslaughter" needs to be further verified.

However, as of press time, WPS has not responded to the question of whether there may be a "manslaughter".

Is this behavior considered infringement?

  Regarding the behavior of remotely locking user files, Zhao Zhan, a special researcher at the Intellectual Property Center of China University of Political Science and Law and deputy director of Beijing Yunjia Law Firm, said in an interview with a reporter from Zhongxin Finance that if users' online sharing is not open to unspecified objects, If it is limited to its friends or work partners, etc., the user's sharing behavior itself may be a private behavior and belong to the scope of privacy. Without the user's consent, the enterprise cannot illegally obtain the private information.

  "Because WPS, as a network service provider, has the obligation to manage illegal information in accordance with the law, but because the user's sharing behavior belongs to the category of privacy, manual monitoring and review cannot be performed, but the content containing prohibited words can be automatically filtered through technical means. , this kind of behavior is generally not illegal. Some social software also has such technical means.”

  Zhao Zhan also said, "If the user has local files on the computer, even if there are illegal or sensitive words, but the user does not spread it on the Internet, any company has no right to lock or delete the user's local computer data, such as remote Locking or deleting is suspected of infringement.” (End)