Meituan has responded to latest consumer experiences claiming that photographs and movies have been being unexpectedly deleted whereas utilizing its app.
A number of Android customers lately reported receiving system notifications indicating that photos and movies had been deleted throughout app utilization. On social media, customers shared screenshots exhibiting alerts that “Meituan” had deleted media recordsdata. One consumer advised Yicai that makes an attempt to recuperate deleted recordsdata failed, with the system indicating that the app was persevering with to delete content material for practically an hour earlier than stopping.
The consumer added that, regardless of the incident, they might proceed utilizing Meituan for companies equivalent to meals supply and shared mobility, however had grow to be extra cautious and disabled sure app permissions.
In a response issued on March 24, Meituan said that the difficulty occurred in uncommon instances resulting from a battle between its app’s automated cache-cleaning perform and a third-party SDK inside the Android system. For the reason that concern emerged, over 180 customers have contacted customer support, with the overall variety of doubtlessly affected customers estimated to be within the a whole lot.
The corporate stated it has already applied an emergency repair. Meituan emphasised that the difficulty was confined to the consumer’s native system system, and that the app doesn’t learn, retailer, or switch any private consumer information. Person privateness and account data weren’t affected.
Meituan has additionally established a devoted technical help crew, working with safety consultants to assist affected customers recuperate misplaced information. The corporate has apologized to all impacted customers and pledged to cowl associated prices and compensate for losses.
In response to Zhou Yuanding, a senior cell safety professional at 4Paradigm Safety (Clover Safety), the incident will be understood as a fancy runtime anomaly triggered underneath particular technical situations. He famous that the difficulty doubtless stemmed from mis-triggered permission calls slightly than systematic abuse of permissions.
Zhou added that such incidents should still happen sooner or later, significantly in apps that depend on automated cache-clearing features and third-party SDKs, the place compatibility points might come up with system updates. Nonetheless, he expects that platforms will undertake stricter sandbox testing and permission management mechanisms following this incident, lowering the probability of large-scale recurrence within the brief time period.
For customers, beneficial precautions embrace granting permissions solely “whereas in use,” disabling pointless automated options, and sustaining safe backups of necessary information.
The incident has additionally reignited discussions round balancing app comfort and consumer privateness. Zhou emphasised that builders ought to shift from “obligatory permission requests” to fashions based mostly on cheap authorization, transparency, and consumer management. For instance, apps ought to keep away from forcing customers to grant non-essential permissions or accessing shared storage unnecessarily. When delicate information entry is required, permission requests needs to be triggered by particular consumer actions slightly than at set up or startup.
Moreover, consultants recommend introducing clearer notifications and reversible mechanisms—equivalent to recycle bins—for high-risk operations like file deletion, to attenuate information loss.
Some customers have jokingly described the incident as apps “gaining self-awareness,” whereas others expressed concern that the rise of AI may make such points extra frequent. Zhou acknowledged these issues, noting that as AI-powered agent options acquire broader system-level entry, dangers of automated errors may improve if safeguards are inadequate. On the similar time, he added that AI improvement can also be driving stronger system-level protections, equivalent to step-by-step consumer confirmations and sandbox restrictions for delicate operations.
Supply: Yicai
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