On the morning of July 31, China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) held a special press conference on food safety. Sun Huichuan, the agency's Director of Food Safety, stated that the innovative application of electronic license verification in the online food delivery sector aims to use new models and technologies to build a closed-loop mechanism encompassing application, comparison, authorization, and display. This enables real-time, precise, and intelligent supervision, providing a "digital sword" to eradicate the "cancer" of "ghost kitchens."
The first step involves breaking down data barriers to expose unlicensed and fake credentials. By having regulators directly send electronic business licenses to food delivery platforms, the data silos between platforms and authorities are eliminated. This allows for "single-source verification, two-way calibration, and instant feedback" of qualification information, effectively blocking the path for fake or expired credentials to enter the network.
Secondly, through real-name authorization, the practice of borrowing or stealing credentials is eliminated. Before a food delivery platform can obtain a restaurant's electronic business license, the restaurant's legal representative must complete real-name authorization using facial recognition technology. This ensures the identity of the authorizing entity is authentic and their intent is valid. This mechanism uses biometric verification as a rigid constraint to cut off the illegal operation path of renting or using others' business licenses.
Thirdly, relying on data cross-checking upgrades supervision from "human-monitored photos" to "data-monitored risks." Using direct data connections as a rigid constraint, the traditional "human-monitored photos" supervision model is transformed into a smart "data-monitored risks" model. This elevates online food safety supervision into the intelligent era, replacing human review with data flow and experience-based judgment with algorithmic precision, significantly improving review efficiency.
Fourthly, the implementation of a unified display allows consumers to see the information clearly. By displaying electronic business licenses, the format, clarity, and other aspects are standardized, preventing issues like blurry, color-distorted, or partially obscured images. This ensures the information is complete, standardized, and readable, making it easier for consumers to instantly verify the legal identity of a food delivery restaurant and enhance their confidence in making informed choices.
Fifthly, using coordinate comparison, the exact location of food preparation is made transparent. Food delivery platforms can automatically capture the business premises from the electronic business license to build an "electronic fence." This is then compared with the restaurant's provided food preparation address and the rider's actual pickup address. This triple-coordinate comparison anchors the restaurant's "real existence," effectively eliminating illegal order transfers like entrusting processing to third parties, achieving a governance shift from "address on paper" to "spatial lock."
Sun Huichuan noted that the essence of "ghost kitchens" is illegal operators without qualifications or fixed premises who disguise themselves as legitimate businesses on delivery platforms by forging credentials, using borrowed licenses, or fabricating addresses. The SAMR maintains a "zero-tolerance" attitude towards this issue. The promotion of electronic licenses is not a simple "technical graft" but a reshaping of the supervision model, achieving three innovative transformations. The first is a shift from "post-event firefighting" to "pre-event fire prevention." Previously, ghost kitchens were often discovered through consumer complaints, but now, with electronic license verification, fake photos of business qualifications cannot pass the review, allowing "ghosts" to be exposed as soon as they go online. The second is a shift from "manpower-intensive tactics" to "smart models." Faced with millions of merchants and billions of daily transactions, manual verification by platforms was risky. Electronic licenses, being tamper-proof and highly anti-counterfeit, automate the "identity verification" process. The third is a shift from "fighting alone" to "collaborative governance." The SAMR now provides platforms with real and effective electronic licenses, shortening verification time and improving efficiency, while also making it clear that further review failures will be considered intentional violations by the platform.
Sun Huichuan emphasized that there is no room for retreat in tackling "ghost kitchens." The SAMR will guide local authorities to increase case investigations, punish platforms that fail to implement qualification verification according to the announced enforcement standards, and promote the pilot application of electronic license verification in provinces with mature conditions. The public and media are also encouraged to continue providing clues to help eliminate this "cancer" and ensure safe and healthy dining.
The press conference also featured Li Jing, Director of the SAMR's Food Service Department, who explained the connection between the new electronic license verification and the regulation on food safety responsibilities for online food delivery service operators, which took effect on June 1, 2024. She stated that the new regulation explicitly requires platforms to register and verify merchants every six months. The electronic license verification application acts as a digital key to secure the admission gate, a dynamic radar to monitor risks in real-time, and a linkage mechanism for punishment, turning the legal requirements into a "data cage."
Zhang Wei, Deputy Director of the SAMR's Registration and Registration Bureau, highlighted the role of electronic business licenses, which serve as digital IDs for businesses. He noted that by late June 2024, 124 million businesses had downloaded electronic licenses, with total usage exceeding 1.1 billion times. The electronic license system is crucial for building trust in the online food delivery industry, ensuring "real people, real licenses, real stores," and for strengthening the entire chain of digital supervision. The SAMR is also working on merging paper and electronic licenses, creating a unified "enterprise code" to further integrate business information and promote digital transformation across various sectors.
Li Zheng, Deputy Director of the SAMR's Department of Science, Technology and Information, outlined the next steps for smart supervision. The focus will be on three areas: building practical and user-friendly systems that prioritize core functions like risk interception and license display; establishing a solid data foundation by breaking down silos and creating a unified database with standardized data maintenance; and integrating business needs with technology to create a closed-loop system for "pre-event interception, in-event display, and post-event tracing."
Wang Lin, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureau, provided a progress report on the pilot program. On May 26, 2024, Shanghai launched the first online food delivery electronic license verification application in the country. The bureau completed the development and opened data interfaces for platforms within a month. The core mechanism involves a government-enterprise data exchange that automatically intercepts abnormal merchant information and, upon authorization from the legal representative, displays tamper-proof electronic licenses with watermarks. Currently, Shanghai has over 70,000 licensed restaurants engaged in online operations. Since the launch, the platform has used the application to display electronic licenses for over 5,000 new merchants. For existing merchants, Taobao Flash has displayed licenses for over 64,000, Meituan for over 60,000, and JD.com for over 35,000. The city is now working towards full coverage of electronic license verification, including for temporary small-scale catering operators, and is using a full range of tools—from compliance guidance to administrative penalties—to enforce platform responsibility and encourage public participation through measures like rewards for reporting violations.
Wang Qiu Ping, SAMR Spokesperson, concluded the press conference, emphasizing that technology empowers supervision and digital tools protect people's livelihoods. She thanked the media and the presenters for their questions and responses, and the conference was adjourned.
Comments