(Yicai) Jan. 15 -- To attract more customers, many Chinese restaurants have launched live streams on online platforms to showcase their dishes and dining environments, but the practice has triggered complaints from diners who say their privacy has been infringed.

The growing use of livestreaming reflects merchants’ efforts to draw traffic and boost visibility at low cost, but legal experts warn that filming customers without consent violates portrait and privacy rights. Under such circumstances, both restaurants and the platforms hosting the streams may be held responsible.

Lin Yue, chief consultant at Lingyan Management Consulting and an analyst specializing in the catering and food industry, told Yicai that merchants hope livestreams can authentically convey a restaurant’s dining atmosphere. As long as a livestream attracts enough viewers, it can serve as a form of advertising while sparing restaurants the cost of hiring extras or models.

While many restaurant livestreams focus on the back kitchen to highlight cleanliness and the on-site cooking process, others turn their cameras toward diners. A Yicai search on a social media platform using the keyword “restaurant live stream” found numerous streams that openly film customers inside dining areas.

In these livestreams, waiters serving dishes, staff cleaning the premises, delivery riders coming in and out, and customers eating and chatting are all captured on camera. Most of the filmed diners are unaware that they have become subjects of the broadcast.

Some consumers complained to Yicai that after discovering they appeared in livestreams, certain restaurants would only temporarily shut down the broadcast if the issue did not trigger public backlash, resuming the stream once the complainants had left.

Zhao Zhanling, a partner at Javy Law Firm, told Yicai that pointing livestream cameras at customers without their knowledge infringes on their portrait and privacy rights.

Beyond restaurants themselves, social media platforms providing livestreaming services should not be exempt from liability, Zhao said, noting that platforms have clear supervisory and management responsibilities over livestream operators.

According to Zhao, China’s new rules for live-stream e-commerce, which will take effect on Feb. 1, require platforms to verify and register the identities of livestream operators and establish real-time inspection systems. Platforms must also strengthen monitoring of streams with large followings and significant influence.

Supervisory measures can include warnings, feature restrictions, livestream suspensions, account closures, and even blacklisting, Zhao said. Platforms should also set up convenient complaint and reporting channels and provide consumers with the necessary information and support to safeguard their rights in a timely manner.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Emmi Laine