China Mobile knows where you are -- should you care?

One of the hallmarks of bad China journalism is reacting hysterically when China is found to be doing things that everyone else is doing. Unfortunately, it happens rather a lot, presumably because hysteria shifts more units than thoughtful, reasonable analysis. The result is that complex issues often get reduced to fearmongering or xenophobic tripe.

This situation is aggravated by the fact that Chinese government people and corporate leaders are, by and large, gifted with tin ears for PR. So I wasn't surprised to see this AFP nugget from Davos in which we learn that (shock!) China Mobile knows where its subscribers are, has access to their personal information, and may provide information to the authorities:

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China's mobile network: a big brother surveillance tool?

DAVOS, Switzerland (AFP) — Serious concerns were raised in Davos last week about the ability of the Chinese government to spy on the country's 500 million mobile phone users.

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.

The admission, described as "bone-chilling" by US Congressman Ed Markey, sent shivers through an audience of telecom experts at the World Economic Forum who immediately saw the potential for misuse and surveillance.

"We know who you are, but also where you are," said the CEO of China Mobile Communications Corporation, Wang Jianzhou, whose company adds six million new customers to its network each month and is already the biggest mobile group in the world by users.

He was explaining how the company could use the personal data of its customers to sell advertising and services to them based on knowledge of where they were and what they were doing.

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Wang could have picked his words better. "We know who you are, but also where you are," makes it sounds like he is arranging a mob hit.

But that doesn't change the fact that, from what I can see in this article, China Mobile is doing much the same things as mobile telecoms operators the world over. All mobile phone operators know where you are. That's how a mobile network works. That's why many mobile operators and handset makers around the world are pushing location-based services, which depend explicitly on the operator knowing both who you are and where you are (as does sending you a bill). If this bugs you then you have problems much closer to home than China. And you might want to cut up your credit cards and take a sledge-hammer to your computer while you're at it.

As for providing information when the Chinese authorities ask for it, what do you expect a Chinese telecommunications company to do? We're not discussing Yahoo here.

The article gets a little less breathless later on, explaining the idea of location-based services and including a quote from an academic pointing out that privacy issues with mobile phones apply to all countries. But you have wade through US representative Ed Markey, chairman of the House subcommittee on telecommunications, arching his eyebrows "so high they're hitting the ceiling" before you get to that. (Markey is pretty sensible on telecommunications stuff, and voted "nay" on last year's loathsome "Protect America Act", which expanded America's own powers of domestic surveillance, so at least he as a moral plank to stand on.)

I normally don't like bringing up a negative US comparison in the face of China criticism as it is an often weak rhetorical tactic I associate with comment trolls. But I think it provides a little useful perspective in this case. In fact, China may have an advantage in the mobile anonymity department in that in China, despite the best efforts of the Ministry of Information Industry, it is still relatively easy to get an anonymous, stored-value mobile phone number. Try getting an anonymous phone number in the US without resorting to cloning. Try getting a phone at all without a mobile contract and see how far you get.

There is a serious PR lesson here. Now that Chinese companies are global, it's lots of fun to go to Davos and rub shoulders with the business glitterati. But Chinese executives, especially those from big state-linked companies, need to learn that their public statements will judged differently than the utterances of American or European bosses. It won't always be fair, but it will be the case. They should plan and train accordingly.

This doesn't mean that they should not speak at events or talk to the press. It does mean that they should consider what they are saying and ask themselves how, in an era when China comes in for a measure of suspicion, foreign audiences will react to what they are saying. Chinese business leaders could be some of China's best international advocates, but they face the challenge of playing to a sometimes hostile audience.

copy &. paste from http://news.imagethief.com/blogs/china/archive/2008/01/28/china-mobile-knows-where-you-are-should-you-care.aspx