(Yicai Global) July 28 -- Chinese organizations including the Ministry of Public Security and network supervisory institutions will establish a work group to review user privacy policies of networks and apps, state-run Xinhua news agency reported yesterday.

This action aims to strengthen personal information safety for netizens, Xinhua reported. The work group will check whether social media and e-commerce platforms clearly inform users about personal data collection, the methods used to gather information and the rules governing its use. The group will investigate whether platforms use personal data to direct targeted ads and whether each platform clearly tells users about their access, deletion and correction rights. 

Among the first reviewed will be popular platforms such as Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s [HK:0700] WeChat, Weibo Corp.'s [NASDAQ:WB] Weibo, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s [NYSE:BABA] Taobao and mobile payment service Alipay as well as JD.com Inc.'s [NASDAQ:JD] site, Baidu Inc.'s [NASDAQ:BIDU] map service, Ctrip [NASDAQ:CTRP], Umetrip, Didi Chuxing and Amap.

Personal information security has become increasing important as internet technologies have spread to nearly every aspect of people's lives. In the first half, 18,000 websites in China were implanted with backdoor viruses.