In China, you pay for most things with a cellphone. Through mobile payment platforms such as Alipay and WeChat Pay, customers can scan a QR code in an app on their phone and pay for everything from groceries, to meals, to a souvenir purchased from a street vendor in a rural village. As millions of Chinese increasingly become tourists, attractions looking to profit from the influx of Chinese visitors are partnering with these mobile payment platforms.
This is a boon to Chinese visitors and the attractions they frequent, but another result is an expanding empire of Chinese-based mobile payments and, along with them, access to even more consumer data. Although a few keychains purchased with a phone in London aren’t so threatening, the growing dominance of Chinese mobile payment requires more scrutiny and should leave us asking how much privacy is an acceptable trade for convenience.
