China's evolving personal data privacy landscape

On 1 February 2013, the first ever national standard on personal data privacy protection came into force in China.

The guidelines, called the Information Security Technology - Guide for Personal Information Protection within Public and Commercial Information Systems ('Guidelines'), were originally proposed by the nation's telecoms regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2011 and subsequently released by the Standardisation Administration of China. The Guidelines' primary purpose is to provide guidance on protecting personal information handled in information systems and applies generally to the private sector. That said, they are intended to serve as a national standard only and are not legally binding.