China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has inspected about 320,000 apps from domestic mainstream app stores, and more than 1,100 related companies have been asked to make changes to their apps to comply with current industry standards, Wen Ku, director of MIIT's Information and Communications Development Department, said at a press conference on Thursday.

Thirty-four apps have been pulled off from platforms for rejecting the ministry's requests. 

Multiple actions in personal information protection have also been carried out by the ministry during the past two years.

"We focused our attention on eight actions that harm users' rights and interests last year, including unauthorized information collection, and prohibition of use if users refuse to provide personal information," said Wen.

On the basis of last year's work, the ministry strengthened the supervision of software development kit commonly used by apps and distribution platforms, and cleaned up problems include user fraud and harassment, according to the director.

Wen told the media that the next step for the ministry is to improve regulations and technical detection capabilities based on problems reported by users to better protect personal information.

(Cover image: Wen Ku, director of MIIT's Information and Communications Development Department. /CFP)