Chinese tech giant Alibaba is developing a digital “individual carbon footprint tracker” to monitor the actions of the public, the firm’s president announced at the globalist World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday.
Speaking at a “Strategic Outlook: Responsible Consumption” WEF panel in Davos, Alibaba Group President J. Michael Evans said that his company will be introducing more surveillance systems within China in order to usher in a so-called greener future.
“We are developing through technology the ability for consumers to measure their own carbon footprint… where are they traveling, how are they traveling, what are they eating, what are they consuming on the platform,” Evans said.
The former Goldman Sachs banker dubbed the project the “individual carbon footprint tracker,” saying: “stay tuned, we don’t have it operational yet but this is something we are working on.”
The Alibaba Group president said that the e-commerce platform, which operates similarly to Amazon and eBay — both of which do not operate in the Communist country — would be providing the data to merchants and individual users.
Evans did not disclose if the data would be shared with the government, however, like with all Chinese corporations, Alibaba is beholden by law to provide data to the CCP, as it was reportedly pressured to do so in January of last year.
The power which the central government has over the firm has also been publicly demonstrated by the “dissapearing” of the billionaire founder of Alibaba Jack Ma in 2020 after he offered critiques of the Communist economic model. Though he reappeared briefly in 2021, Ma has reportedly lost some $10 billion from his net worth.
In addition to creating a carbon footprint tracker, Evans said that the firm is developing a “green travel” maps system in which people will be provided “the best route, the most efficient route, and the most efficient form of transportation and then if they take advantage of those recommendations, we will give them bonus points that they can redeem elsewhere on our platform.
Read More: Alibaba Pushes ‘Individual Carbon Footprint Tracker’ at Davos