Beijing lifts restrictions on DiDi rideshare service

DiDi Chuxing’s troubles may be coming to an end as Beijing lifts restrictions on ride-sharing services.

Beijing targeted DiDi after it raised $4 billion from a stock sale on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). A few days after listing, Beijing launched a data security investigation against DiDi for “illegally collecting user data.”

The Chinese government is cracking down on Chinese companies listed on the U.S. market as tensions between the United States and China escalate. DiDi has about 500 million users, and Beijing is said to be concerned that his NYSE listing could share data with US regulators.

In an “expert meeting” memo shared among Didi’s investors, company executives said the company stores all China data and that passing the data to U.S. authorities ” Absolutely impossible,” he said.

Chinese authorities have forced local app stores to filter out DiDi’s apps. In July 2022, Beijing fined DiDi her $1 billion, but the restrictions were not lifted.

In the months since being fined, DiDi seems to have done enough to placate Beijing and lift the restrictions.

“With the consent of the Cybersecurity Review Office, new user registration on the Didi Chuxing app will resume soon,” DiDi wrote on Chinese microblogging service Weibo.

“Over the past year or so, we have carefully cooperated with cybersecurity reviews, taking security issues found during reviews seriously and implementing comprehensive fixes.”

Shortly after Beijing announced its investigation into DiDi, the company announced it had dropped plans to launch robo-taxis in the UK and Europe. To maintain Beijing’s favor, DiDi is unlikely to resume its expansion in Western Europe in the near future.

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tag: Beijing, China, connected car, connected car, Didi, Didi Chushin, internet of things, ride sharing