Baidu Maps (百度地图)

Is Baidu Maps safe?

Baidu Maps will get you around China reliably, and we found no breach of its users' data. What you give up is privacy. Its privacy policy describes merging your activity into tags about your habits, interests and even credit status, used for automated marketing, and the app carries advertising SDKs from ByteDance's Ocean Engine and Tencent. Data stays in mainland China. We score it 45/100, one point below Amap (46) and well below Google Maps (60).

Baidu Maps is run by Beijing Baidu Netcom Science & Technology. In 2021 the research firm Analysys counted about 559 million active users, the most of any map app in China, just ahead of Amap.

What Baidu Maps collects

Apple's label for the China App Store looks modest. It says identifiers may be used to track you across other companies' apps, links contact info and identifiers to you, and lists location, search history, user content and usage data as collected but not linked to your identity.

The privacy policy, in effect since June 2024, tells a fuller story. Baidu says it combines data you provide "actively or passively" into tags reflecting your behaviour, interests or credit status, and uses them for automated decisions that push personalised content and marketing. It links information across your devices. It collects device identifiers, Wi-Fi network names and BSSIDs for security, reads the clipboard for share codes, and on risky logins uploads the names of uncommon apps installed on your phone. It also admits that some collection may continue briefly after you send the app to the background.

The third-party list adds the advertising picture. It names ad SDKs from Gromore (Ocean Engine, part of ByteDance), Tencent's Youlianghui, Meishu and BeiZi, plus Miaozhen for ad measurement, all receiving device data such as model, system version and advertising identifiers. Under our rules the broader of label and policy counts, so privacy (25) is scored on the policy.

Data collected in China is stored in China, where the law gives authorities broad access. For a commuter that may not matter. For a journalist or anyone whose movements are sensitive, a map that records trips and routes deserves more care.

Regulators in China and India

Baidu Maps has two official actions against it, neither with a fine. On 29 June 2020 India's IT ministry blocked "Baidu map" along with TikTok, WeChat and 56 other apps. The order cited complaints that apps were "stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users' data" to servers outside India.

On 1 May 2021 the Cyberspace Administration of China named Baidu Maps among 17 map and navigation apps, in a notice on 33 apps, whose tests found problems such as collecting personal data unrelated to the service. It gave them 10 working days to fix the problems. The same day, national rules took effect that list the only data a navigation app may require for basic features.

Splash-screen ads have been the more recent complaint. In June 2026 the business press reported that Baidu Maps and Amap had dropped splash ads and the shake-to-open feature after a driver's video showed his map jumping to a shopping page when the car shook, and after an industry ministry campaign against pop-up jumps. That was a sector-wide clean-up, not an order naming Baidu Maps, so we treat it as context.

Security and safety on the road

We found no reported breach of Baidu Maps users and no app vulnerability for it in the US National Vulnerability Database. Baidu runs a security response centre, BSRC, that takes bug reports. The policy promises encryption and an internal incident process but, unlike Amap or DingTalk, names no security certification.

The app's own content risks are small. It is rated 4+, with ads, voice packs and in-app purchases, and users can post reviews and comments on street-level panoramas. Taxi bookings run through partner platforms with their own safety rules. The real road risk was distraction from pop-up ads, which the 2026 clean-up should have reduced.

How to use Baidu Maps with less exposure

1. Set location access to "While Using the App"; the App Store says Baidu Maps may use location when closed.
2. Turn off personalised recommendations under My, Settings, Privacy settings, and programmatic ads in the same privacy menu.
3. Clear trip and route history under My, Footprints, and turn off route recording you do not use.
4. Skip real-name verification unless a service you need requires it.
5. Reset your phone's advertising identifier, or limit ad tracking, so ad SDKs cannot match you across apps.

How we scored it

Scams and harmful content (62) is the strongest factor, since most of the app is maps, not strangers. Privacy (25) is the weakest: profiling that includes credit status, cross-device linking, third-party ad SDKs and storage in China, all under a label that shows less. Security (54) rests on a clean breach record without certifications, and the regulatory record (45) on India's block and the 2021 Chinese order. For transit outside China, Citymapper collects far less.