Data privacy protection on Hangzhou's agenda

A group of prominent social scientists from Luohan Academy gathered in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province on March 20, to discuss and address data privacy issues in the era of artificial intelligence and big data.

The Luohan Academy, a global think tank established by China's e-commerce giant Alibaba Group last June, is designed to address emerging socioeconomic issues resulting from technological breakthroughs.

The first batch of 15 experts for its advisory committee are mostly world-leading economists, including six Nobel Prize laureates in economics such as Bengt Holmstrom, Alvin Christopher A Pissarides, and Michael Spence.

This year's convention also drew in luminaries in the fields of law, sociology, and data governance, including French economics professor Jean Tirole of the University of Toulouse, and the US expert on privacy and internet policy Jim Dempsey.

In 2018, the European Union (EU)'s "strictest-ever" General Data Protection Regulation came into effect, aiming to protect people's private information, which has also sparked a debate on whether it will curb the progress of information technology enterprises in the EU.

The fabric of society will fall apart without trust, said Fang Hanming, professor of Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, adding that data exploitation in the intelligent era has led to a trust crisis in society.

"We discuss these privacy issues at the beginning of 2019 because we have noted controversies. It is hoped that we can reach more consensus, find solutions, and share them with the whole of society," said Chen Long, secretary-general of the Luohan Academy.

According to a report published by the think tank of The Economist, China is more aware of the importance of data privacy for corporate governance than Europe and the United States. Nearly 98 percent of Chinese respondents believe that data privacy is the most important part of good corporate governance.