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China's mobile network: a big brother surveillance tool? 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. 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." The movement of mobile phone users can be tracked because they connect to local base stations, giving a trail that can only be accessed in most democratic countries by security officials under strict conditions. Mobile phones can also be easily tapped. Markey, who is chairman of the US House of Representatives subcommittee on telecommunications, contrasted the situation with the checks and controls in place in the United States, where a court order is required for the government to check phone records. "I have my eyebrows arched so high they're hitting the ceiling," he told AFP after listening to Wang. "I have many, many more questions about what the relationship is with the government and moreover how the company can use that information."
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