Legal regulation of personal data protection and its control by the state in China

Abstract

This article examines the Chinese normative acts that regulate personal data protection. The author reviews the questions of restrictions pertaining to personal life due to introduction of social score system. Analysis is conducted on the “system of social rating” (“social credit”) formed on the basis of government services. The article presents the examples of civil right restrictions due to low rating in the sphere of employment, public housing, reception of subsidies, basic social benefits, and loans at low interest rates. The practice of “social condemnation”, when the short clips are shown before the main film in a movie theatre naming local people who have failed to pay off debt. The conclusion is made that the social score system controls activity of a person in all spheres of social life – from business to family relations, from credit default to violation of traffic rules. The author notes that biggest unfairness of this system pertains to the citizens who buy videogames, spent long time in social network, spread fake news, which leads to restriction of high-speed Internet. It is also underlines that there is virtually no legal framework for implementation of such system or legal acts that regulate the score system, and the corresponding “guiding recommendations” of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China contain pretty vague formulations.