What’s new: Kai-Fu Lee, a renowned investor and artificial intelligence (AI) technology advocate, apologized after stoking public concerns following his controversial comments that appeared to acknowledge that the country’s largest fintech group may share users’ facial data with its business partners.
In the speech delivered at a tech forum in Beijing on Saturday, Lee — chairman and chief executive of Sinovation Ventures — shared his experience of how he managed to facilitate the development of a facial recognition startup called Megvii Technology Ltd. in which Sinovation is an investor.
Lee said his company had played a role in helping Megvii to seek early-stage partners including Ant Group Co. Ltd. and selfie app operator Meitu Inc., and that Megvii had collected facial data from these partners for industry analysis.
The background: Lee’s comment come at a sensitive time for Ant Group, which is expected to soon launch what’s widely believed to be the largest IPOs in history.
Following Lee’s comment, Ant Group put out a statement the same day saying the company had never been in touch with Lee and had never passed Ant Group’s users’ facial data to Megvii. Meitu released a similar response, while Megvii also said it wouldn’t request user data from business partners.
Lee released a statement later apologizing to the three companies, saying he had made “a slip of the tongue.”
Contact reporter Mo Yelin (yelinmo@caixin.com) and editor Marcus Ryder (marcusryder@caixin.com)
