You say 'shameful secret,' I say 'privacy'

Computerworld -

Just because globalization at this point seems unstoppable doesn't mean it's going to be easy. The pitfalls awaiting companies venturing into distant lands remain very real. Take the matter of data privacy. Currently, momentum is building among Western multinationals to seek approval from the European Union for their binding corporate rules (BCR) on privacy. Once they have that approval in hand, these companies are rolling out training on the new rules around the world. But when they do so, they often find that when it comes to the topic of privacy, Westerners and the rest of the world are often talking at cross purposes.

Quite simply, the concept of individual privacy rights doesn't translate into the collectivist cultures where over half the people in the world live. A combination of language problems, foreign concepts and privacy values that aren't shared means PowerPoint presentations produced in New York are falling on deaf ears in Shanghai, Mumbai and Johannesburg.

Take China, for example. U.S. multinationals trying to break into the Chinese market or tap Chinese engineering talent are setting up shop in southern China. When the topic of privacy arises, they are finding that the Chinese have a very different idea of what it is. The Mandarin word for privacy -- yin si -- generally translates as "shameful secret." According to Lu Yao-Huai, a professor at Central South University in Changa City, a person asserting a need to withhold personal information could easily be seen as selfish or antisocial.

"Generally speaking, privacy perhaps remains a largely foreign concept for many Chinese people," she wrote in "Privacy and Data Privacy Issues in Contemporary China." Indeed, in 2003, just 55% of Chinese polled said privacy should be respected and protected, compared to figures topping 90% in U.S. polls at the time.

Western corporations may face similar complexities when trying to convey their corporate privacy values to a Japanese audience. In their article "Privacy Protection in Japan: Cultural Influence on the Universal Value," Yohko Orito and Kiyoshi Murata, professors at Ehime and Meiji universities, respectively, explain that Japanese citizens may not share the European view that privacy is an intrinsic right.

"[I]nsistence on the right to privacy as the 'right to be let alone' indicates a lack of cooperativeness as well as an inability to communicate with others, they wrote.

In related research, Masahiko Mizutani, professor at Kyoto University, and Dartmouth professors James Dorsey and James Moor state, "[T]here is no word for privacy in the traditional Japanese language; modern Japanese speakers have adopted the English word, which they pronounce puraibashi."