Shein

Is Shein safe to use?

Most Shein orders arrive, and you are unlikely to lose money outright. The weaker part is everything around the purchase. French regulators fined the company €190 million in 2025 over cookie tracking and fake discounts, a 2018 breach exposed 39 million Shein accounts, and the European Commission opened a formal Digital Services Act investigation in February 2026. We score it 41/100, a point below Temu.

What Shein's app collects

The US app is published by Roadget Business Pte. Ltd., a Singapore company. Its Apple privacy label is shorter than many rivals'. Identifiers may be used to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies. Contact details, payment info, purchase history, device and user IDs and product interaction data are linked to your identity, partly for Shein's own marketing. Search history and diagnostics are collected but not linked to you, according to the label.

The more telling finding came from France's data regulator. CNIL tested Shein's French website in August 2023 and found advertising cookies were placed before visitors agreed, information about them was incomplete, and some cookies were still set after people clicked refuse. In September 2025 it fined Shein's Irish subsidiary, Infinite Styles Services Co. Ltd, €150 million. Shein said it firmly contests the decision and would appeal.

The 2018 breach

In 2018 attackers took data from 39 million Shein and 7 million Romwe accounts, including email addresses and hashed passwords, and card details were taken too. Shein's owner at the time, Zoetop Business Company, learned of it from its payment processor.

New York's Attorney General said in October 2022 that Zoetop had publicly put the number affected at 6.42 million, never alerted the owners of more than 32.5 million exposed accounts and did not reset their passwords. Zoetop paid $1.9 million and agreed to improve its security. We found no confirmed breach of Shein customer accounts since, but the way this one was handled weighs on the security score.

Fake discounts and pressure tactics

This is where regulators have been most specific. France's consumer authority DGCCRF checked thousands of discounted products on Shein's French site from October 2022 to August 2023. It found 57% of them offered no real discount and almost one in five discounts was smaller than advertised. Shein was fined €40 million in July 2025, which also covered environmental claims it could not justify.

In May 2025 the EU network of consumer authorities, led by Belgium, France, Ireland and the Netherlands, told Shein to stop a list of practices: fake discounts, false purchase deadlines, misleading information on return rights, deceptive product labels, misleading sustainability claims and hard-to-find contact details.

Illegal products on the marketplace

Shein has been a Very Large Online Platform under the Digital Services Act since April 2024. On 17 February 2026 the Commission opened formal proceedings over three issues: how Shein limits illegal products, including content that could amount to child sexual abuse material such as child-like sex dolls; the risks of addictive design, such as points and rewards for engagement; and whether its recommender systems are transparent. Opening proceedings is not a finding of guilt, and no decision had been published by October 2026.

The French government tried to suspend Shein in November 2025 after childlike sex dolls and banned weapons were found for sale. A Paris court refused in December 2025, noting Shein had removed the items, but ordered age verification for adult products. The Court of Appeal refused the suspension again in March 2026.

How to shop on Shein more safely

1. Pay with PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay or a credit card, not a debit card or bank transfer, so a chargeback is possible.
2. In the app's privacy settings and your phone's tracking settings, refuse tracking. On iPhone, choose "Ask App Not to Track" when prompted.
3. Ignore countdown timers and "only 2 left" banners. Compare the price with what it was a few weeks earlier before treating a discount as real.
4. Be most careful with children's products, cosmetics, jewellery and anything electrical.
5. Use a unique password. The 2018 breach is the reason to never reuse your Shein password elsewhere.

Fake Shein gift card texts and "free haul" offers on social media are a common phishing route. Shein will not ask you to pay a fee to claim a prize.

How we scored it

Regulatory record (30) carries the €190 million in French fines, the New York penalty and two open EU cases. Scams and harmful content (38) reflects the EU's findings on fake discounts and illegal products. Security (45) is held back by the 2018 breach and how it was disclosed. For comparison, Amazon has a bigger privacy footprint but a much stronger security record, and TikTok faces similar EU scrutiny over design.