Apple's iPhone privacy ad starring Hong Kong kung fu star Donnie Yen proves a hit in China

Apple's new advertisement proclaiming the iPhone's privacy protection features has become the latest hit for the US consumer electronics giant in China.

The one-minute video, published Wednesday on Apple's official WeChat account, features Hong Kong martial arts star Donnie Yen Ji-dan delivering kicks and punches when people invade the privacy of iPhone users.

The ad shows Yen intervening when an office worker tries to peek at a colleague's iPhone screen, and shows him preventing snoops from observing the shopping and health habits of others.

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The kung fu star, famous for his acting roles in the Ip Man movie series, is dressed in a black suit with a modified Apple logo on his chest, in the form of a padlock. The video was accompanied by a song with the line "don't wander around me".

"To safeguard the security of personal information to the greatest extent, this is very iPhone," the ad says, with a promise that user data from FaceID, gallery and the health app "are strictly protected".

As of Thursday, the ad had generated 100,000 views on Apple's official WeChat page, and more than 51,000 views on Yen's personal account on Weibo.

The campaign comes at a time when Chinese consumers are increasingly concerned about privacy and the government is implementing a new legal framework to protect data and privacy.

But Apple's privacy-focused ad also touched on a sensitive topic in China.

While some social media users praised the ads as creative, others questioned Apple's track record in privacy protection. In documents leaked by former CIA consultant Edward Snowden in 2013, the US National Security Agency was able to obtain direct access to data held by Google and Apple through a secret programme called Prism. At the time, Apple said it did "not provide any government agency with direct access to [its] servers".

In 2016 Apple was criticised for refusing a request by the FBI to unlock the iPhone of a suspect in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.

In China, Apple has ceded legal ownership of its customers' data to Guizhou-Cloud Big Data, or GCBD, a company owned by the provincial government.

Some Chinese iPhone users have reportedly received smut spam via iMessage, an instant messaging service exclusive to Apple devices. An antifraud official from the public security authority in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, attributed the incidents to iCloud account leaks, according to a Wednesday report by local government-run newspaper City Link.

According to an ongoing poll by local media ITHome, 76 respondents said they trusted Apple in terms of privacy protection as of Thursday morning, versus 97 who did not.

People walk near a display advertising the Apple iPhone 14 outside its store in Shanghai, China, November 7, 2022. Photo: Reuters alt=People walk near a display advertising the Apple iPhone 14 outside its store in Shanghai, China, November 7, 2022. Photo: Reuters>

The Chinese government has in recent years enhanced the oversight of privacy controls, issuing regulations including the Personal Information Protection Law and Data Security Law to better address the problem.

As part of Beijing's efforts, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has named and shamed over 2,500 apps since 2019 for illegally collecting user information, requesting excessive permissions or misleading customers.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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