The session "The Future of Mobile Technology" from Davos, Switzerland, revealed the possibility that 500 million mobile phones from the country could be spied by the Chinese government.
The declaration made by the CEO of China Mobile Communications Corporation, Wang Jianzhou, amazed everyone: the company has unlimited access to the personal data of the users and, if the Chinese security officials demand these information, the company provides it.
The announcement astonished the telecom experts at the World Economic Forum who regarded it as a possibility of abuse and surveillance.
He told that the personal details of the more than 300 million subscribers could be used to sell advertising and services to them
The chairman of the US House of Representatives subcommittee on telecommunications drew a distinction between the given circumstances and the checks and controls in place in the United States, where, for checking phone records, the government needs a court order. His words are more than evident: "I have my eyebrows arched so high they're hitting the ceiling".
When information was divulged to Beijing police and the immediate consequence was sending to jail of a Chinese journalist, US Internet company Yahoo was questioned.
Shi Tao was accused and convicted in 2005 for divulging state secrets. It seems that when the media organizations wished to celebrate the Tiananmen Square uprising on the Internet, a Chinese government order posted by him forbid this.
The information was offered by Yahoo and now he must spend the next 10 years in jail.
Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University in Britain, is one of the persons who also drew attention on this new phenomenon that turned into a serious issue: the development of the mobile phone and its intense use is a threat to privacy, not only in US.
He declared to AFP that "It's amazing to see how such a comprehensive surveillance network has been set up through the market force of consumer demand".
The facts are that "you're paying for your own monitoring device", while "with CCTV (closed circuit television), the government sets it up and you have nothing to say about it".
In his opinion, in the democratic countries, the government should try harder to have appropriate regulation.
Wang made these observations when was brought into discussion the fact that, when increasing targeted advertising and other services, additional revenues are produced by the mobile phone operators.
Google chairman Eric Schmidt agreed on the idea of location-based advertising: the users are sent targeted advertising through the location of mobile phone. In supporting his idea he offered the example of a fast-food advertiser who could send an advertisement to a user near the restaurant.
Because at last year's Shanghai Formula One grand prix, using this method, the company estimated the number of participants, Wang thinks that this could be extended on other areas or occasions.
523.3 million Chinese were using mobile phones at the end of September 2007 and their number increased with more than 13.5 percent from the end of 2006.
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