Concerns over data

Concerns over data

用隐私换便捷，你愿意吗？

导读：脸书的数据危机让不少人重新关注起了个人隐私安全这一问题，而百度总裁李彦宏近日对于国内用户的一番言论更是引发了人们激烈讨论……

We’re living in an age of big data, where much of our personal information is collected by companies and has a high risk of being exposed. With personal privacy being an important issue, a recent comment by Baidu founder Li Yanhong attracted a lot of attention.

我们生活在一个大数据的时代，企业收集了大量的个人信息，信息外泄的风险很高。随着个人隐私成为一大问题，百度创始人李彦宏的近期的一番言论引发了大量关注。

During a talk at the 2018 China Development Forum in Beijing on March 26, Li said, “I think that the Chinese people are more open, or not so sensitive, about the privacy issue.”

3月26日，2018中国发展高层论坛在北京举行。李彦宏在一场讲话中表示，“我想中国人可以更加开放，对隐私问题没有那么敏感。”

“If they are able to exchange privacy for convenience or efficiency, they are willing to do so in many cases.”

“如果他们愿意用隐私交换便捷性，很多情况下他们是愿意的。”

The comment raised a heated discussion among Chinese people, with many saying that Li’s words are far from the truth. “This is an arbitrary assumption about [Baidu’s] entire community of users,” Li Ling, a 25-year-old photographer based in Shanghai, told Sixth Tone.

这番言论在国人中引发了激烈讨论，不少人认为李彦宏的话根本不是事实。“这是对（百度）整体用户的武断假设，”居住于上海的25岁摄影师李凌（音译）在接受《第六声》采访时表示。

However, Jia Rui, an investment manager focused on the big data industry, said that Li’s comment reflected the fact that every user agrees to privacy terms before they use platforms such as Baidu, WeChat or Sina Weibo. However, such “agreements” could allow service providers to have access to users’ personal data, and sometimes more data than they really need.

然而，大数据行业投资经理贾瑞（音译）表示，李彦宏的言论反映了一个事实：每个用户都会在使用百度、微信、新浪微博等平台前同意相关隐私条款。但这些“条款”能够让服务提供方获得用户的个人数据，有时甚至比真正所需的数据还多。

Meanwhile, these “agreements” are often long and complicated, meaning that many users just click “I agree” instead of reading through them carefully.

与此同时，这些“条款”大多冗长复杂，这也意味着不少用户没有仔细通读条款便点了“我同意”。

“That doesn’t mean users do not care about privacy or that the company can use the data however it wants,” Jia told the Global Times. “On the contrary, data protection is the most important thing for companies and the industry regulator.”

“这并不意味着用户不在意隐私，或者企业可以随心所欲地使用这些数据，”贾瑞在接受《环球时报》采访时表示。“恰恰相反，数据保护对于企业以及行业监管者而言是最重要的事。”

Li’s comment came shortly after US social media giant Facebook was accused of leaking the data of 50 million users to Cambridge Analytica, a London-based data firm, which was said to have used the information to affect Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign in 2016.

在李彦宏说出此番言论不久前，美国社交媒体巨头脸书被指控将5000万用户数据泄露给伦敦数据公司剑桥分析。该公司据称曾使用这些信息对唐纳德?特朗普2016年的美国总统大选产生影响。

This triggered an awareness of personal privacy across the world. “People are digging in and looking at the data that’s been collected on them,” Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT, told the CNN.

这一事件引发了全球各地的人对个人隐私的关注。“人们开始深究，查看自己被收集的数据，”麻省理工学院公民媒体研究中心主任伊桑?祖克曼在接受CNN采访时表示。

Leaders from tech giants also called for tighter regulation of users’ personal data. “I think this certain situation is so dire, and has become so large, that probably some well-crafted regulation is necessary,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook during the 2018 China Development Forum.

科技公司巨头的高层们也呼吁加强对个人数据的管理。“我认为，这种情况非常严峻，而且已经广泛存在，可能需要一些精心制定的规章制度，”苹果公司总裁蒂姆?库克在2018中国发展高层论坛上表示。

Meanwhile, China is also improving personal privacy regulations. In January, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology advised some of China’s biggest internet companies such as Baidu and Ant Financial to do more to inform users about how they collect and use personal data.

与此同时，中国也在加强个人隐私的规范管理。今年1月，工业和信息化部约谈百度、蚂蚁金服等几家国内最大的互联网公司，要求保障用户知情权，了解这些公司如何收集并使用个人数据。

As the discussion continues, it’s hoped that users’ personal data will be better protected in the future. Just as Cook said, “Privacy to us is a human right.”

随着讨论的不断深入，用户个人数据有望在未来获得更好的保护。正如库克所说，“隐私对我们而言是项人权。”