to start this thread simply i would like to know what are the rights of users of social medias such as wechat or facebook.
for instance, if i created a group on wechat and invited chinese citizens while i sm french/eu citizen, do chinese police or chinese intelligence have a right to watch our conversations in group? i am french citizen so i doubt chinese police has a right to read what i write... the same goes in a 1 to 1 dialogue. would chinese intelligence has a right to read what i write or what a chinese citizen writes TO ME ?
alternatively, if my rights r not respected, what legal process may i start in international laws?
r there such international laws?
thanks for ur replies and legal actions!
Since using a VPN is technically illegal in China AND since you can't get to Facebook without a VPN, then you would be breaking the law and inviting Chinese citizens to break the law. Perhaps that's not a good idea.
as recent revelations of nsa and gchq habits have shown, what has rights or the law got to do with it? if angela merkel cannot do anything about phone hacks etc under international law (except complain through diplomatic channels) what can private citizen do? you have every right to privacy, but no reason to expect it will be observed. expect ch intel to have the ability to read, they may be to busy to read all traffic but one estimate is that 300k people monitor here, so if they are reading the stuff that has already been filtered by software you could think about what you are writing. of the kinds of conversation you are having with ch national
For a start, if you are in China, it doesn't matter if you are a French/Namibian/Timbuktu citizen, Chinese law and the rights that a Chinese person has are applied to you. You do not get special privilege or treated any differently unless you are a diplomat or ambassador of your country.
Chinese privacy laws, as far as I know, are largely non existent. However there are parts of other laws that indicate people have a right for freedom of discrimination and freedom of secrecy (which doesn't apply if you are breaking other laws though).
Coming soon however may be a new law that more explicitly defines your internet freedoms, they are drafting laws to cover counter-terrorism, with the wording indicating they are interested in establishing mechanisms that would ensure that access to private phone and Internet records, go through a strict approval procedure for search and seizure. The information gathered being used solely for the purpose of counter-terrorism. I would expect their definition of terrorism however to include violation of particular tenets, most likely one being the right for the Chinese Communist party to rule China.
Basically you have little protection Gompo and as the judicial system in China is not exactly independent, I wouldn't expect any sort of privacy that we are "afforded" in the West.
(I put the "afforded" in quotes because Dazzer is spot on).
all right, but if i use wechat in france, how would chinese state has a right to read my writings? in that case they could have a right to read anything i write, anytime.
are there such thing as international laws or conventions on that matter? if yes, were can i find them?
i think legally citizens should have right for protection of privacy and legal actions if these rights are violated, no?
Neither rights nor laws pop up out of Nature - at some point they all have to do with consent, even if nonconsent is illegal.
Gompo, maybe then you should consult the laws in France. In general, most countries seem to apply laws based on the location of the servers, not the user. Despite the fact that you are in France, when you use WeChat, your interactions take place on Chinese servers.
Some French court might one day rule that WeChat is not allowed to monitor your conversations in France, but all they would be able to do to enforce it is block WeChat in France, using a page from the Chinese Great Firewall book.
The Chinese authorities would also counter that you agreed to terms of service that allow for this (based on language such as "under the laws and regulations of the PRC"), that the actual communication is taking place in China, and that Chinese citizens, who are most definitely covered by Chinese surveillance, are part of that conversation.
ok, i did not know wechat was specifically chinese.
but say, in mail exchange with a chinese citizen, what rights would have chinese to read the mails i send?
if the chinese state would have the rights to read the mails i send, then conversely french state would have the right to read mails any chinese citizen send to french citizen?
that would create big interference, no?
What makes you think either state has rights?
