The AFP, via Yahoo News reports:

The head of China’s biggest mobile phone company, which has more than 300 million subscribers, stunned delegates by revealing that the company had unlimited access to the personal data of its customers and handed it over to Chinese security officials when demanded.

This came up while Wang Jianzhou, China Mobile’s boss, was explaining the wonders of location-based advertising to the bold and the beautiful at the Davos confab.

When pressed about the privacy and security implications of this, he added: “We can access the information and see where someone is, but we never give this information away … only if the security authorities ask for it.”

This is hardly shocking. The article notes:

Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University in Britain, stressed how the mobile phone had become a serious threat to privacy in all countries.

“It’s amazing to see how such a comprehensive surveillance network has been set up through the market force of consumer demand,” he told AFP.

“With CCTV (closed circuit television), the government sets it up and you have nothing to say about it. With this (mobile phones), you’re paying for your own monitoring device.”

If China Mobile ever decides to expand overseas it’ll have a lot of explaining to do.

'); //-->

ShareThis