Internet Users in China Expect to Be Tracked. Now, They Want Privacy.
- 6 years ago
Internet Users in China Expect to Be Tracked. Now, They Want Privacy.
While Chinese culture does not emphasize personal privacy and Chinese internet users have grown accustomed to surveillance and censorship, the anger is representative of a nascent,
but growing, demand for increased privacy and data protections online.
Ant Financial said in the terms of service that it reserved the right to share the data it collected with third parties — including government agencies assembling a national, government-sanctioned social credit system —
and could not be held responsible for what happened after it shared the information.
Fueled in part by widespread internet fraud and personal information theft, such a trend, if it continues, could become a major challenge to China’s internet titans,
and eventually to the cyber-authoritarian aspirations of the Chinese government itself.
While Chinese culture does not emphasize personal privacy and Chinese internet users have grown accustomed to surveillance and censorship, the anger is representative of a nascent,
but growing, demand for increased privacy and data protections online.
Ant Financial said in the terms of service that it reserved the right to share the data it collected with third parties — including government agencies assembling a national, government-sanctioned social credit system —
and could not be held responsible for what happened after it shared the information.
Fueled in part by widespread internet fraud and personal information theft, such a trend, if it continues, could become a major challenge to China’s internet titans,
and eventually to the cyber-authoritarian aspirations of the Chinese government itself.