China approves new privacy law to prevent illegal processing of personal data

Beijing, Aug 20 (EFE).- China passed Friday a new law on privacy protection that will require individual consent before processing sensitive personal information, according to state-owned Xinhua agency.

Moreover, the new law seeks to avoid price discrimination based on stored customer data.

The legislation, which will come into effect on Nov.1, allows users to refuse companies permission to collect their data for profiling, Xinhua reported.

It added that the law, approved by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), stipulates a suspension or cancellation of applications that illegally sensitive personal information such as biometrics, medical and health, financial accounts and whereabouts.

Earlier, NPC spokesperson Zang Tiewei had told Xinhua that the new legislation sought to outlaw discrimination arising from the use of personal data, such as offering different prices for the same service according to the purchase history of each user.

Zeng had underlined in April that excessive collection of personal information had become a problem and that there was a need to improve the handling of personal information.

As of March 2020, China had 900 million internet users, more than four million websites and more than three million apps, according to an introduction to the bill, reported Xinhua. EFE

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