China's data protection laws are in a period of rapid
development and change. On 20 August 2021, the Standing Committee
of China's National People's Congress promulgated the
long-waiting Personal Information Protection Law
("PIPL"), which will come into effect on
1 November. The PIPL, together with the Guarding State Secrets
Law (2010), the Cybersecurity Law (2017), the
Encryption Law (2020), and the Data Security Law
(2021), have formed the legal framework of data protection and
cybersecurity in China.
As the most influential legislation in the field of data
protection, EU's General Data Protection Regulation
("GDPR") has many techniques that has
been borrowed by China in legislating the PIPL. Nevertheless, there
are still many differences between the GDPR and the PIPL because of
the different visions for individual's rights and national
security. In this article, we will highlight the key points in the
PIPL by comparison with the GDPR.
