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Chinese companies are compelled to share data for "national security" purposes, if requested. The situation is the same in the US, however. Recall that the NSA

Chinese companies are compelled to share data for "national security" purposes, if requested. The situation is the same in the US, however. Recall that the NSA secretly compelled US telecom networks to hand over all call records (in violation of the 4th Amendment). However, in day-to-day business operations, there are laws governing how companies can use customer data. My understanding is that data privacy laws are now stricter in China than in the US.

imiric 2y ago
You're wrong, this is nothing like the legal requirements US companies must comply with. For one, Chinese companies must have a CCP member in their leadership ranks. A company the size of Huawei has hundreds of them[1]. This kind of goes without saying in an autocracy that there will be party members in all companies, but it often blurs the line of private vs. state ownership. Secondly, there are laws in place that require companies to provide direct feeds to the government of the data they process[2]. In the US, programs like PRISM were kept secret and made headlines when they were revealed, as there is still some amount of legal process that needs to happen before the government can access company data (Apple is famous for refusing, regardless if that's just PR or not), but in China this is done in the open, and all companies must comply. I find that comparing an autocratic government to others that at least have some semblance of democracy is pointless. It's a certainty that in an autocracy companies and individuals have much less control over property, including their highly valuable digital data. [1]: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2019/08/08/2003720108 https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2019/08... [2]: https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/532583-for-chinese-firms-theft-of-your-data-is-now-a-legal-requirement/ https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/532583-for-chinese...
- hulitu 2y ago
  > I find that comparing an autocratic government to others that at least have some semblance of democracy is pointless. It's a certainty that in an autocracy companies and individuals have much less control over property, including their highly valuable digital data. So US and Western Europe are autocracies then ? Because I cannot control which info the iOS, Android and Windows syphons to the US government. And Apple is the company which fixes 0 days when others find them. And they also had a HW backdoor.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    It isn’t a binary, it’s a spectrum.
  - imiric 2y ago
    > So US and Western Europe are autocracies then ? That's ridiculous. > Because I cannot control which info the iOS, Android and Windows syphons to the US government. The laws are certainly not where they need to be, but a European citizen can at least provide consent to how their data is handled, request their data from companies, and ask for it to be deleted. Last I heard, there are similar laws in some US states. China has recently passed similar laws (PIPL), but I'm not sure how that can be reconciled with living in a surveillance state, where your actions online can harm your social credit score, get you arrested[1], or disappeared. [1]: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3259183/chinese-police-arrest-over-1500-online-rumours-campaign-targeting-influencers-bloggers-and-live https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3259183/chi...
    - DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
      > your actions online can harm your social credit score There is no such thing as a social credit score in China. It's a myth. The fact that this myth has persisted for so many years is puzzling.
      - imiric 2y ago
        I suppose you're going to tell me that the documented cases of people being refused employment or basic services because they've behaved in a way that authorities deem morally "wrong" is also a myth? Western propaganda, surely. But please link me to any proof. I want to be educated. Also, way to ignore the part where people are arrested or disappeared for the same behavior. At least we can agree that much is true.
        DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
        Yes, it's a myth. If you want to know about the real "social credit system," look up Jeremy Daum, a specialist in Chinese law at Yale who has written various articles and given interviews on the subject. Long story short: it's a grab bag of corporate regulations, and does not involve scoring of citizens. There's only one way that private individuals ever interact with the system, and that is if they default on a court decision. Every case you hear about someone not being allowed to take high-speed trains or the like has to do with people who lost a legal case (such as a defamation lawsuit), were ordered to pay a fine, and then refused. Again, no score is ever involved, and citizens rarely interact with this system at all.
- talldayo 2y ago
  > Apple is famous for refusing, regardless if that's just PR or not Now they can be famous for lying, too: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-secretly-giving-governments-push-notification-data/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...
  - imiric 2y ago
    I mean, they were part of the PRISM program, so they must share some data with the government that is not known to the public. Besides, that article talks about push notification data. I was referring to their refusal to decrypt phone data for the FBI[1]. How much of that was done for self-serving purposes, and how much they actually cooperated, will likely never be known publicly. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute
    - talldayo 2y ago
      I consider that to entirely be a publicity stunt. At the time, Apple was entirely aware the United States imported Greykey tools for decrypting iPhones, and within the week the San Bernadino phone was cracked by cops anyways. It is pure security theater. If you're waiting for Apple to come out and make a press release admitting to all this, you've missed the point entirely.
- DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
  The distinction you're trying to draw between the US, where privacy is supposedly protected by legal processes, and China, where the government spies on its citizens, is not tenable after all the revelations about extensive government spying in the US. Snowden showed that the US government was secretly compelling all the major tech companies to hand over vast amounts of user data to the NSA. This is formally illegal, but it has now been going on for decades, and there's almost no way to challenge it.
  - imiric 2y ago
    First of all, you brought up the comparison with the US. I prefer more focused conversations, so I'm not sure what we're really discussing here. My point is that personal freedoms such as the right of data ownership are more restricted in an autocratic state. This is just the way these governments operate, and citizens have no say in the matter. Say what you will about the US, it still hasn't reached that level of control over its population. I'm arguing against your point that the situation is the same in the US. It absolutely isn't. But please avoid whataboutisms in the future, since it only serves to derail the topic.
    - DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
      After Snowden, talking about how citizens' or companies' data is protected from the US government is just not realistic. > that level of control over its population The difference between the US and China is not that data is protected from the government in one. If the US government wants your data, it will get it. The difference is in issues like censorship and habeas corpus. > whataboutisms When someone starts going on about how Chinese companies can be compelled to give data to the government, as if this is something particular to China, the fact that the US government can just as easily compel companies to hand over data is absolutely relevant.

imiric 2y ago

You're wrong, this is nothing like the legal requirements US companies must comply with. For one, Chinese companies must have a CCP member in their leadership ranks. A company the size of Huawei has hundreds of them[1]. This kind of goes without saying in an autocracy that there will be party members in all companies, but it often blurs the line of private vs. state ownership. Secondly, there are laws in place that require companies to provide direct feeds to the government of the data they process[2]. In the US, programs like PRISM were kept secret and made headlines when they were revealed, as there is still some amount of legal process that needs to happen before the government can access company data (Apple is famous for refusing, regardless if that's just PR or not), but in China this is done in the open, and all companies must comply. I find that comparing an autocratic government to others that at least have some semblance of democracy is pointless. It's a certainty that in an autocracy companies and individuals have much less control over property, including their highly valuable digital data. [1]: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2019/08/08/2003720108 https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2019/08... [2]: https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/532583-for-chinese-firms-theft-of-your-data-is-now-a-legal-requirement/ https://thehill.com/opinion/cybersecurity/532583-for-chinese...

hulitu 2y ago
> I find that comparing an autocratic government to others that at least have some semblance of democracy is pointless. It's a certainty that in an autocracy companies and individuals have much less control over property, including their highly valuable digital data. So US and Western Europe are autocracies then ? Because I cannot control which info the iOS, Android and Windows syphons to the US government. And Apple is the company which fixes 0 days when others find them. And they also had a HW backdoor.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  It isn’t a binary, it’s a spectrum.
- imiric 2y ago
  > So US and Western Europe are autocracies then ? That's ridiculous. > Because I cannot control which info the iOS, Android and Windows syphons to the US government. The laws are certainly not where they need to be, but a European citizen can at least provide consent to how their data is handled, request their data from companies, and ask for it to be deleted. Last I heard, there are similar laws in some US states. China has recently passed similar laws (PIPL), but I'm not sure how that can be reconciled with living in a surveillance state, where your actions online can harm your social credit score, get you arrested[1], or disappeared. [1]: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3259183/chinese-police-arrest-over-1500-online-rumours-campaign-targeting-influencers-bloggers-and-live https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3259183/chi...
  - DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
    > your actions online can harm your social credit score There is no such thing as a social credit score in China. It's a myth. The fact that this myth has persisted for so many years is puzzling.
    - imiric 2y ago
      I suppose you're going to tell me that the documented cases of people being refused employment or basic services because they've behaved in a way that authorities deem morally "wrong" is also a myth? Western propaganda, surely. But please link me to any proof. I want to be educated. Also, way to ignore the part where people are arrested or disappeared for the same behavior. At least we can agree that much is true.
      - DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
        Yes, it's a myth. If you want to know about the real "social credit system," look up Jeremy Daum, a specialist in Chinese law at Yale who has written various articles and given interviews on the subject. Long story short: it's a grab bag of corporate regulations, and does not involve scoring of citizens. There's only one way that private individuals ever interact with the system, and that is if they default on a court decision. Every case you hear about someone not being allowed to take high-speed trains or the like has to do with people who lost a legal case (such as a defamation lawsuit), were ordered to pay a fine, and then refused. Again, no score is ever involved, and citizens rarely interact with this system at all.
talldayo 2y ago
> Apple is famous for refusing, regardless if that's just PR or not Now they can be famous for lying, too: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-secretly-giving-governments-push-notification-data/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...
- imiric 2y ago
  I mean, they were part of the PRISM program, so they must share some data with the government that is not known to the public. Besides, that article talks about push notification data. I was referring to their refusal to decrypt phone data for the FBI[1]. How much of that was done for self-serving purposes, and how much they actually cooperated, will likely never be known publicly. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple–FBI_encryption_dispute
  - talldayo 2y ago
    I consider that to entirely be a publicity stunt. At the time, Apple was entirely aware the United States imported Greykey tools for decrypting iPhones, and within the week the San Bernadino phone was cracked by cops anyways. It is pure security theater. If you're waiting for Apple to come out and make a press release admitting to all this, you've missed the point entirely.
DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
The distinction you're trying to draw between the US, where privacy is supposedly protected by legal processes, and China, where the government spies on its citizens, is not tenable after all the revelations about extensive government spying in the US. Snowden showed that the US government was secretly compelling all the major tech companies to hand over vast amounts of user data to the NSA. This is formally illegal, but it has now been going on for decades, and there's almost no way to challenge it.
- imiric 2y ago
  First of all, you brought up the comparison with the US. I prefer more focused conversations, so I'm not sure what we're really discussing here. My point is that personal freedoms such as the right of data ownership are more restricted in an autocratic state. This is just the way these governments operate, and citizens have no say in the matter. Say what you will about the US, it still hasn't reached that level of control over its population. I'm arguing against your point that the situation is the same in the US. It absolutely isn't. But please avoid whataboutisms in the future, since it only serves to derail the topic.
  - DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
    After Snowden, talking about how citizens' or companies' data is protected from the US government is just not realistic. > that level of control over its population The difference between the US and China is not that data is protected from the government in one. If the US government wants your data, it will get it. The difference is in issues like censorship and habeas corpus. > whataboutisms When someone starts going on about how Chinese companies can be compelled to give data to the government, as if this is something particular to China, the fact that the US government can just as easily compel companies to hand over data is absolutely relevant.