Tesla bows to China, opens Shanghai data center

Electric car maker Tesla has opened a data center in Shanghai to store all data collected from mainland customers. The move is likely to be game-changing for all international tech firms targeting the Chinese market.

Tesla faces a wave of protests from customers and Chinese officials over data issues. This country requires foreign businesses to store user data on Chinese territory since 2017, after the Cybersecurity Law took effect. Before that, Apple also decided to store iCloud accounts of Chinese users in a new data center in Guizhou.

Yale Zhang, managing director of research firm Automative Foresight, said data processing is a serious problem that leading technology firms have to deal with when operating in the mainland. The strengthening of the legal framework in managing the data collected by electric vehicle companies comes not only from the government’s national security concerns, but also from the point of view of protecting the interests of consumers.

Beijing is increasingly aware of privacy and data security, and has implemented a series of measures to manage the data generated by electric vehicles. Electric vehicles are inherently equipped with a variety of software, from entertainment to self-driving cars and connecting to the Internet.

China’s Cyberspace Administration released a series of drafts on May 12, titled Regulations on the Management of Automotive Data Security, following a bill issued by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology last month. before. The set of regulations regulates that personal data and important data collected, arising while operating in the country must be located within the territory of China, especially regarding smart electric vehicle manufacturers such as Tesla.

In March, the Chinese military banned Tesla electric vehicles from facilities due to concerns about cameras installed on these vehicles. Mr. Elon Musk – CEO of Tesla – confirmed that the company’s electric cars are not used to spy on China. “If Tesla uses a car to track in China or anywhere else, we will shut down.”

Tesla sales in the mainland fell in April after being boycotted by users. It sold just 25,845 vehicles here, down 27.2 percent from March, according to the latest data from the China Passenger Car Association.

According to SCMP