Abstract
Privacy has become a global topic of concern. Meanwhile, it is a concept that is deeply rooted in local cultures. This paper is conceptual exploration of privacy in China, it proposes that privacy is a concept yet to be fully mapped out in Chinese culture. Specifically, this paper uses the proposed Social Credit System in China as an example of discussion, for this example not only helps with capturing the urgency and significance of the topic, but also is particularly provocative in revealing the scope of privacy as a cultural concept. This paper begins with a brief introduction to the proposed Social Credit System; then, it discusses what might constitute a cultural perspective to understand privacy, and cautions the complexity of comparing privacy across cultures. This paper could serve as a meaningful reflection for both countries who are concerned with privacy issues in face of large scale application of big data analytics, and for privacy scholars in cross-culture contexts.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Shankar, A.: What’s your citizen ‘trust score’? China moves to rate its 1.3 billion citizens. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/11/10/whats-your-citizen-trust-score-china-moves-rate-its-1-3-billion-citizens/851365001/. Accessed 9 Dec 2017
Meissner, M.: China’s Social Credit System: A big-data enabled approach to market regulation with broad implications for doing business in China, Mirjam Meissner, Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS). https://www.merics.org/fileadmin/user_upload/downloads/China-Monitor/merics_ChinaMonitor_39_englisch_Web.pdf. Accessed 9 Dec 2017
Botsman, R.: Big data meets Big Brother as China moves to rate its citizens. Wired. http://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-invasion. Accessed 6 Dec 2017
Soo, Z.: Ant Financial apologises for opting in users for credit scoring system. http://www.scmp.com/tech/china-tech/article/2126772/chinas-ant-financial-apologises-over-alipay-user-data-gaffe. Accessed 9 Apr 2018
Hofstede, G.: Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values. Sage, Beverly Hills (1980)
Hofstede, G.: Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. McGraw-Hill, London (1991)
Hofstede, G.: Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations Across Nations, 2nd edn. Sage, Thousand Oaks (2001). Google
Li, Y., Xiong, Y.: The difference between Chinese and American culture and advice for cross-cultural management-based on Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions. Paper presented at the 2012 International Conference on Information Management, Innovation Management and Industrial Engineering, vol. 1, pp. 374–377 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1109/iciii.2012.6339678
Li, Y., Kobsa, A., Knijnenburg, B.P., Nguyen, M.-H.C.: Cross-cultural privacy prediction. Proc. Priv. Enhanc. Technol. 2, 113–132 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1515/popets-2017-0019
Trepte, S., Reinecke, L., Ellison, N.B., Quiring, O., Yao, M.Z., Ziegele, M.: A cross-cultural perspective on the privacy calculus. Soc. Media + Soc. 3(1) (2017). https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305116688035
Acquisti, A., Brandimarte, L., Loewenstein, G.: Privacy and human behavior in the age of information. Science 347(6221), 509–514 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa1465
Laufer, R.S., Wolfe, M.: Privacy as a concept and a social issue: a multidimensional development theory. J. Soc. Issues 33(3), 23–42 (1977)
Wilson, D., Valacich, J.: Unpacking the privacy paradox: irrational decision-making within the privacy calculus. In: Proceedings of the 33rd International Conference on Information Systems, Orlando (2012)
Smith, H.J., Dinev, T., Xu, H.: Information privacy research: an interdisciplinary review. MIS Q. 35(4), 989–1016 (2011)
Culnan, M.J., Armstrong, P.K.: Information privacy concerns, procedural fairness, and impersonal trust: an empirical investigation. Organ. Sci. 10(1), 104–115 (1999)
Koumakhov, R.: Conventions in Herbert Simon’s theory of bounded rationality. J. Econ. Psychol. 30(3), 293–306 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2009.03.001
Barnes, S.B.: A privacy paradox: social networking in the United States. First Monday 11(9) (2016)
Thaler, R.H., Sunstein, C.R.: Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Yale University Press, New Haven (2008)
Wang, Y., Leon, P.G., Scott, K., Chen, X., Acquisti, A., Cranor, L.F.: Privacy nudges for social media: An exploratory facebook study. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on World Wide Web, pp. 763–770 (2013)
Zhang, L., Zhu, J., Liu, Q.: A meta-analysis of mobile commerce adoption and the moderating effect of culture. Comput. Hum. Behav. 28(5), 1902–1911 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.05.008
Mistreanu, S.: China is implementing a massive plan to rank its citizens, and many of them want in. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-social-credit-laboratory/. Accessed 3 Apr 2018, 9 Dec 2017
Farrall, K.N.: Global privacy in flux: illuminating privacy across cultures in China and the U.S. Int. J. Commun. 2, 38 (2008)
Guo, R.X.: An Introduction to the Chinese Economy: The Driving Forces Behind Modern Day China. Wiley Asia, Singapore (2010)
Shun, K.-L.: Conception of the person in early confucian thought. In: Shun, K.-L., Wong, D.B. (eds.) Confucian Ethics: A Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy, and Community, pp. 183–199. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2004)
Ames, R., Wimal, D., Kasulis, T.P.: Self as Person in Asian Theory and Practice. State University of New York Press, Albany (1994)
Wang, H.: The conceptual basis of privacy standards in China and its implications for China’s privacy law. Front. Law China, Beijing 7(1), 134–160 (2012). https://doi.org/10.3868/s050-001-012-0007-4
Warren, S.D., Brandeis, L.D.: The right to privacy. Harvard Law Rev. 4(5), 193–220 (1890). https://doi.org/10.2307/1321160
Altman, I.: The Environment and Social Behavior: Privacy, Personal Space, Territory, Crowding, 1st Irvington edn. Irving Publishers, New York (1981)
Altman, I.: Privacy regulation: culturally universal or culturally specific? J. Soc. Issues 33(3), 66–84 (1977)
Altman, I., Chemers, M.M.: Culture and Environment. Brooks/Cole Pub. Co., Monterey (1980)
Winslow, J.: Chapman expert explains the rise of social credit scores in China. TCA Regional News (2016)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Ma, Y. (2019). Unmapped Privacy Expectations in China: Discussions Based on the Proposed Social Credit System. In: Taylor, N., Christian-Lamb, C., Martin, M., Nardi, B. (eds) Information in Contemporary Society. iConference 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11420. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15742-5_75
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15742-5_75
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-15741-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-15742-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)