Did this 2015 blog post from Didi contain Chinese state secrets?

We know that Didi, China’s ride hailing giant that went on US IPO on 30 June, is now under pressure from the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC).

We do not know exactly what type of information is considered risky by the CAC, but a blog post Didi did in July 2015 probably offered a glimpse of what it could be.

The entire government 

The post, jointly developed by Xinhua News Agency and Didi Research Institute, contained information about travel patterns of key government ministries and agencies in Beijing over two hot summer days.

Didi collected and analysed ride hailing data to and from Ministry of Public Security, (former) Ministry of Supervision, Ministry of Civil Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Ministry of Land and Resources, (former) Ministry of Environmental Protection, Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development,  Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Culture, (former) National Health and Family Planning Commission, People’s Bank of China, and National Audit Office.

Travel patterns

We can see that Ministry of Public Security is the most popular destination:

While Ministry of Land and Resources is the most popular pick up point:

It also revealed that Ministry of Land and Resources has the most over-time work. The reason, according to the blog post, is a series of inspections and law enforcement activities that the Ministry is planning:

In comparison, Ministry of Public Security is busy round the clock (24 hours). The blog post suspects it is because of the recent campaign against “malicious” short selling in stock markets:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been busy round the clock too. The blog post attributes that to the fact that the Minister was attending Iran Nuclear Talks in Vienna, so people were on standby in case any announcement was to be released: 

Ministry of Agriculture seemed to be quite busy between 9-11pm. The blog post suggested it might be related to the ongoing harvest in Northern China:

Amongst the quietest agencies, according the blog post, was Central Commission for Discipline Inspection – a very powerful agency of the Communist Party of China that was driving the anti corruption campaigns. Ministry of Supervision and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology were also quiet:

Finally, Ministry of Science and Technology employees seemed to be knocking off on time, while National Development Reform Commission (NDRC) is a popular destination between 6-8am, suggesting that many people were visiting in the morning.

NDRC approves major development project and the associated budget. It is a very powerful agency indeed:

Now you get a sense :).