# How worried should I be that a Chinese state-owned company has a sizeable stake in my telecom provider?

**URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/how-worried-should-i-be-that-a-chinese-state-owned-company-has-a-sizeable-stake-in-my-telecom-provider/39806
**Category:** Questions
**Tags:** please-eli5
**Created:** 2026-08-11T14:08:05Z
**Posts:** 5

## Post 1 by @AbedfromCommunity — 2026-08-11T14:08:05Z

My country requires users to register their government ID with telecom providers in order to use SIMs, something I begrudgingly complied with due to requiring mobile internet for work. What I didn’t know until now was that my mobile provider is a consortium of a local conglomerate holding firm and a Chinese state-owned telecom conglomerate.

According to Wikipedia, [China Telecommunications Corporation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Telecommunications_Corporation) has a [40% stake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dito_Telecommunity#Ownership) in the telecom provider I use, and this has got me worried about what they really do with the data I give them. I understand that there are certain privacy tradeoffs when choosing to use a telco provider but I wasn’t completely aware of the involvement of the Chinese government in mine.

In a nutshell, how worried should I be and what should I do about it?

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## Post 2 by @GolCor — 2026-08-11T15:00:41Z

My gut reaction is that it’s never safe to trust that your telecom provider is going to treat your data with respect either way, so it is always best to use VPN’s to protect any data you send through them. I don’t know that China Telecommunications Corporation is necessarily worse than Google, AT&T, or Deutsche Telekom having access (and the respective government agencies who have work with those companies).

But it’s really going to come down to your specific threat model. If you’re actively producing and sharing anti-chinese content, they may take a little more notice. If you’re actively trying to stir up rebellion in that country, another provider would probably be a better fit.

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## Post 3 by @AbedfromCommunity — 2026-08-11T18:09:42Z

My main concern is that I registered this SIM with my government ID, and I’m worried about the implications that another country’s government has access to that information.

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## Post 4 by @GolCor — 2026-08-11T20:21:07Z

It’s hard for me to weigh in much on that. I live in the USA, so pretty much all of our government IDs are so plastered all over the dark web that I have to assume China has more copies of them than I do. Our government and most of our businesses suck at cybersecurity.

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## Post 5 by @anon64393658 — 2026-08-12T00:28:16Z

A non-controlling stake isn’t too alarming in itself. More worrying would be if they are using Huawei equipment.

If you are in an industry of interest to the PRC (Tech, biomedical, defense, etc) or you are an activist against the PRC then you should assume they are collecting on your data. The good news is that this kind of bulk collection can be mitigated through standard privacy practices like VPNs, encrypted email, and encrypted messaging apps.