The export of WeChat chat records has always been a matter of great concern to WeChat users. In response to this demand, many third-party software on the Internet have developed the function of exporting WeChat chat records. However, similar software may no longer be available in the future. Recently, it was reported that Tencent has officially sent a letter of complaint to GitHub (the world's largest code hosting and collaboration platform), requesting the delisting of a number of open source projects that "allow users to export or analyze their own WeChat chat records." Among them, the leaders of some of the more high-profile projects publicly stated that under legal pressure, the projects were forced to stop maintenance.
This means that Tencent is complaining and requesting the removal of an open source project that allows third parties to read WeChat chat records.
On January 22, Tencent responded to reporters from The Paper that some open source projects that read WeChat chat records use reverse engineering of the WeChat client to crack the key of the local database to bypass the encryption measures of the WeChat client, threatening the user's and third-party data privacy and client security, and are easily exploited by black and gray products.
Tencent stated that it made requests to the open source platform in accordance with relevant regulations and received support from the platform. Most projects also chose to actively remove illegal content after communicating with the platform.
According to complaints exposed on social media, Tencent complained about more than 30 related projects at one time, many of which were quite popular and widely downloaded and collected. Even small-scale projects that were only used for technical research or personal data collection were not spared.
The WeChat Security Center previously issued an announcement saying that using third-party tools to manage WeChat chat records may bring the following risks:
Disclosing and using chat records without the consent of WeChat friends may bring risks to other people's personal information and privacy security; providing chat records and other data to third-party tools may lead to the leakage of your personal information and privacy; if chat records contain sensitive information such as your identity, location, payment, etc., they may be used by criminals for information reselling or targeted fraud, endangering personal and property safety.
WeChat Security Center says not to install or use any third-party tools that access local chat history. The WeChat platform will continue to resolutely crack down on all types of illegal acquisition and use of WeChat end user data. If users find such a situation, please also file a complaint through the client as soon as possible.