Big Brother China

Back when I discussed the idea of The Collaborative Economy, I forgot to mention one other takeaway. One which I recently remembered.

That Tencent and Alibaba have more than 800 million users is a perfect depiction of the danger of social media and individual privacy.

Here you have the perfect setup where these social media groups with hundreds of millions of users (Facebook included, though far more restricted, ironically) who do EVERYTHING in their daily lives via some form of app linked to these mega companies.

From payments of taxi rides, online purchases, banking, bills, booking of tickets and so many other transactions. From linked blogs, blogs, weblogs and statuses, comments and likes. From investments, credit cards, insurance, financial-linked accounts and funds transfers. From every single private detail like birthdays, family members, daily activities, actual locations, account numbers, ID and addresses. The Chinese big two have ALL these data.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Now think about how this data can easily be used. From credit scores, outstanding payments, loans, and large purchases to the more scary like voting sentiment, consumer sentiment, dissent, criticism, political bias, and location-monitoring.

This is the really scary part.

What if every Chinese citizen is given a certain overall 'score' churned out by all this data and this 'score' is subsequently used to predict and decide the future of every individual? What if an individual is unable to work in the government sector no matter his educational qualifications? What if a whole family cannot qualify for certain rebates simply based on one family member's political criticisms? What if a glass ceiling appears even before you started the first day in your job?

The implications are endless. 

There is much good such data could  achieve in the right hands and mindset, yet in the wrong hands, this could also easily lead to demographical discrimination.

Something very interesting to ponder about.