The Chinese platform is still in the news. As the end-of-year holidays approach, Temu has established itself as a choice alternative for inexpensive Christmas shopping. The volume of packages transported through the marketplace leaves little room for doubt: while they represented only 5% of packages managed five years ago, Shein and Temu now represent 22% of packages sent by postone point more than the giant Amazon.
Serious security questions as Christmas approaches
The fact remains that behind its attractive prices and its thousands of references in stock, Temu also raises several security concerns. Accusations of espionage and dark patterns continue to weigh heavily on the company’s reputation, and the opening of an investigation by the European Commission at the beginning of November does not help the situation. More recently, it was a report published by the NTC, the Swiss National Test Institute for Cybersecurity, which sounded the alarm.
According to the NTC, Temu would adopt, through its application, “unusual behaviors“, “potentially used to conceal unwanted data transfers“. More concretely, the application would be able to modify its behavior in complete autonomy, without informing Internet users or going through a traditional update. In addition, the Swiss institute also points out the use of additional layers of encryption on certain facets of the application. A subtlety which reveals nothing fundamentally problematic, but which could once again be used to initiate operations without the consent of Internet users.
What’s the problem with Temu?
Like Shein before him, Temu is accused across the Atlantic “exploiting trade loopholes to import goods without paying import duties or subjecting shipments to human rights controls“, estimates the special committee of the House of Representatives in the United States. While waiting to know how the company manages the sensitive information of its customers (address, telephone, emails, but also credit card number, etc.), the company is now well established, and it has even become the most popular application downloaded from France.
No critical flaw
The good news is that the charges against Temu are not yet critical, at least if the NTC report is to be believed. No critical security flaw or concrete proof of espionage coming from the Chinese company is to be deplored, even if the numerous gray points raised in the report prevent us from asserting with certainty that the application does not use any of the means made available to exceed one’s rights regarding the use of user data.
While waiting for all the light to be shed, it is better to play it safe by uninstalling the application from your smartphone, even if it means going through the website instead.
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