Opinion

Privacy still valued in capital

By Edward Mills (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-11-03 08:21

In the age of social networking, the general concept of privacy is sadly being watered down by the day in many Western countries.

The United Kingdom is widely considered to hold the record as the world's most heavily monitored nation with as many as one closed-circuit television camera for every 10 members of the population.

Indeed, the problems of safeguarding privacy and the ever-increasing public sphere of information has long been an issue there.

Everyone has a profile on many popular websites, often using real personal data with limited control of who gets to see it.

Many inadvertently give away details that could easily be used fraudulently, while a great number conduct their entire private life in effective public view through a myriad of different messaging services and picture upload sites, not least through Facebook.

Where people aren't recklessly giving up their information, there have also been several recent cases of serious intrusions into the privacy of people in the UK, most notably involving United States Internet giant, Google.

Google's Street View software has not only pictured almost everyone's residence on the Internet, but it transpired that they also collected individual's wifi data in the process.

With such well-known companies getting away with shocking unauthorized data collection, the situation doesn't seem to be progressing in the right direction.

Meanwhile, on this side of the world, the opposite is seemingly happening.

It's certainly true that young Beijingers are similarly obsessed with Internet-based communication, even with well-publicized incidences of some residents digging up the personal details of other users on bulletin boards and using information available online about them.

But the issues surrounding privacy otherwise are certainly flying to the foreground of discussion in Beijing today. Just look at the general reaction to the census takers.

Many census takers are reporting being treated with suspicion or rudely as a result of their requests for information.

Some 6.5 million census takers are making their way across China now.

Some residents, though, are wary of handing over their personal details, even to an official.

Some respondents in a recent poll said they were not comfortable with this data collection and felt uneasy about letting people into their homes.

Zhang Yi, a population and labor economics researcher for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that people won't show reluctance to census takers after they are convinced their privacy is protected.

In addition, the growth of the middle class and people's improved education is likely also playing a part.

While keeping themselves to themselves is hardly a new phenomenon in modern Chinese society, the expanding private sector and privately accumulated personal wealth are equally important details that contribute toward the bold steps forward in thinking about privacy.

Census takers have done a good job so far in convincing individuals that their private information will not be disclosed.

So the census is going ahead quite smoothly.

Personal space is often said to play a major role where privacy of the individual is concerned and for some, especially those who are used to more of it, this is yet to make a change here.

The cramming of the subway, people walking closely in the street and general near proximity to others will likely continue due to Beijing's huge population - at the very least, until more effective infrastructure is in place.

Regardless, while the values of privacy are steadily being eroded overseas, it's reassuring to see the tentative growth of such feelings here.