China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said its “secondary number refresh” service now covers 259 commonly used internet apps. The service helps people unlink accounts associated with a previously used phone number. According to MIIT’s notice on telecom service quality in the third quarter of 2026, it had served users on more than 17.61 million occasions and received more than 1.05 billion app-unlinking requests.
The ministry said it conducted 42 batches of technical checks on apps during the quarter. It ordered corrections to 967 apps, publicly identified 163 and removed 72. The compliance rate for apps still available rose by 1.3 percentage points from the previous quarter.
MIIT also commissioned a third party to test customer-service hotlines. The testers could not find a hotline number in Plants vs. Zombies 2. Human agents for Weibo, DingTalk, Tuyou Doudizhu, 360 Jietiao, Youku Video and Tuhu Car did not answer within 30 seconds. MIIT said it had urged the companies to improve their response.
In complaints about problematic mobile apps in the third quarter, 56.8% concerned cybersecurity, 27.5% concerned personal information and permissions, and 15.7% concerned information security. Separately, the Internet Society of China worked with app stores and security-testing companies to remove 53 problematic apps.