That doesn't mean you should be happy with data in America, but China is worse.
That’s not to say their privacy story is fantastic, but they very much still have European operations.
They don't protect us at all. Thanks to Snowden, we all know that the US government has extremely sophisticated and wide-ranging ability to get access to any data we share with American companies.
> but China is worse
And why so?
Factually incorrect. US privacy laws pose a huge burden to US intelligence. The 4th amendment still applies. Warrants still exist.
> Thanks to Snowden, we all know that the US government has extremely sophisticated and wide-ranging ability to get access to any data we share with American companies.
Citation needed.
> And why so?
In the PRC, there are no privacy laws to protect you from the government. "Private" companies are an extension of the government and all of the larger ones are required to have a CCP party member on board to ensure that they are "aligned" with what the party wants. The party happily disappears dissidents at will, threatens dissidents in other countries, requires that all domestic companies provide encryption keys (or otherwise made encrypted data accessible) on demand with zero warrants or other legal protections, maintains the largest network of surveillance cameras in the world (several times more than the total number of those in the United States), and many more things.
This is extremely common knowledge, easily searchable online, and is factually and categorically different than anything the US, or any other Western country, does. Only the terminally ignorant or the propagandists believe that the PRC's surveillance is remotely similar to that of any western country - the available evidence comprehensively disproves that conspiracy theory.
I believe the US stance is that nobody outside the US is entitled to court relief against the US government regarding their privacy, and nobody outside the US and EU is entitled to any relief at all, even from the executive (the “Data Protection Review Court” non-court, formerly the “Privacy Shield Ombudsperson”). In the EU, there are some protections in some countries but for example the GDPR specifically does not apply to governments.
I mean, the Chinese government is worse on this, but the US is nevertheless really bad and a number of EU countries also suck to a remarkable extent. Until the US press starts dropping the “of Americans” from their latest surprised-Pikachu headlines on “mass government surveillance of Americans”, I’m unconvinced the situation will improve.
