China is making tentative steps toward building a comprehensive personal credit system, allowing ordinary people to have better access to financial resources. Kong Dechao, a professor at the School of Finance at Renmin University, argued in a recent piece that big data will let this system cover more people, be more effective, and avoid the role of human error, but that it also raised questions about personal privacy.
Big data is already an integral part of credit evaluations, based on models and algorithms built through big data collection and analysis.
But Kong noted that there is often a dangerous ambiguity over whether information was personal or part of big data, and that these overlaps could threaten personal privacy. Many firms don't put enough effort into the proper processing of personal information, and it's expensive and difficult for people to use the courts to defend their rights to privacy.
Better laws around personal information and privacy should be a priority, Kong suggested, as well as increased government regulation of corporate use of data. But individuals, he said, also need to be aware of the potential for abuse.
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