Yesterday, I was chatting with a friend who handles marketing for Seedance (ByteDance's AI video generation tool). He asked me: When using Claude Code, aren't you worried about data leaks?
I was taken aback.
This question is actually quite interesting. I looked inward and asked myself: Is the stuff on my computer really that valuable?
Honestly, for most people, the data on personal computers has limited value. Information depreciates extremely rapidly in the AI era—materials you collected months ago may already be outdated. Truly sensitive things, like bank card passwords, who actually stores those on their computer?
But this question becomes a completely different matter when applied to enterprise scenarios.
Code Is the Real Asset
Everyone has been watching the recent conflicts between the US and Iran, and Israel and Iran. Modern warfare relies heavily on intelligence. If your system code logic is clearly visible to organizations with malicious intent—what you run, how you run it, where your vulnerabilities are—this isn't merely a data leak; this is exposing the entire organization, or even society, to threat.
This is why I always have reservations about cloud-based scanning by coding agents. Before each execution, it has to read your codebase and understand your system. This isn't a one-time event; it's repeated, continuous exposure. If the cloud is compromised... the consequences are unthinkable.
So for code governing critical systems, privatization isn't optional—it's a necessity.
Identity Crisis in the Multimodal Era
But this is still just the text scenario. If we move to multimodal—voice, video, likeness—things become completely different.
My friend is responsible for Seedance Pro, which was quite popular recently. You upload a photo, and it can generate a video featuring your face, your voice, even recognizing the background of your office.
In other words, AI can "replace" you in the digital world by learning your likeness and your living environment.
This is far more terrifying than code leaks. Code leaks mean loss of logic and assets. Likeness leaks mean loss of "you."
So I told my friend: The scenario that most urgently needs privatization in the future isn't code—it's text-to-video.
People don't sense the danger yet. But as soon as a few cases emerge—someone using AI-generated videos to impersonate you for fraud or to extract benefits—the public will suddenly realize: My digital identity can actually be stolen.
The Nature of Digital Identity
Speaking of digital identity, there was a period when I kept thinking about something.
Suppose I'm a KOL (Key Opinion Leader) who makes a living on Douyin (TikTok), with all my income coming from this platform. One day, Douyin decides I'm problematic and bans my account.
What do I do?
The fans, trust, and economic sources I've accumulated on that platform instantly drop to zero. My digital identity has been erased.
A more immediate example: WeChat.
WeChat is actually relatively tolerant and doesn't ban accounts arbitrarily. But consider this: You've placed all your social relationships—family, friends, business partners—on WeChat. All your chat histories and contact information with them resides there.
Suppose one day your WeChat account gets banned.
Many people only have your WeChat contact, not your phone number. To these thousands of people, you suddenly vanish from their world. You might lose 70% or even 80% of your existence in the digital world.
Thinking about this sends chills down my spine.
The Right to Relational Connection
This is the "right to relational connection."
Platforms control your ability to connect with others. This ability is fundamentally an asset. But it doesn't belong to you.
Zhihu is Zhihu, WeChat is WeChat, Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) is Xiaohongshu, X is X. Each platform is siloed. Everything you accumulate on them is essentially rented. The platform can reclaim it at any moment.
This is why I eventually built a personal website.
My domain belongs to me. My website uses the same protocol as yours—you're a website, I'm a website; you're just bigger. People remember the domain guanjiawei.ai, the fact that "you can find Guan Jiawei through this address." Not "some account on Zhihu" or "some ID on Douyin."
If Zhihu bans my account, my domain remains. People can still find me.
Two-Layer Privacy Logic
Returning to the original question: How important is data privacy, really?
I believe we need to examine this on two levels.
For individuals, anything related to identity is extremely important. Your likeness, your voice, the relationships you've built in the digital world—these constitute your "digital existence." Losing them is, in a sense, social death.
For organizations, identity is already established and cannot flee. What's more critical is "how it operates"—your system logic, your code, your vulnerabilities. The attack surface expands.
The thinking logic for these two differs completely.
But one principle holds true for both: In the AI age, casually surrendering rights is a dangerous act.
Whether it's your code, or your face.
Originally published at https://guanjiawei.ai/en/blog/who-owns-your-digital-identity
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