The “Forum on Personal Information Protection in the Big Data Era”of the Fifth World Internet Conference, hosted by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of the People’s Republic of China, co-organized by China Federation of Internet Societies (CFIS) and the People’s Procuratorate of Zhejiang, was held on November 8. The forum was attended by heads of prosecution departments, senior prosecutors from countries like Russia, Belarus and over 130 concerned experts and scholars from European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA), United Nations Children’s Fund South Asia’s Office, Carnegie Mellon University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China and Beijing Normal University. Ren Xianliang, chairman of the CFIS, attended the forum and delivered a keynote speech.
He pointed out that the benefits from Internet enjoyed by people in daily life was accompanied by problems of cybersecurity. Illegal and criminal acts like privacy violation, personal information theft and fraudulence of netizens’ money were common and had become a prominent problem affecting the public security. Thus, the voice of the public for protecting the personal information and important data in accordance with the law had become more and more strong.
The Internet brings people together while the law guarantees the operation of Internet. He also pointed out that online social organizations are the important link among the Party, government, the Internet industry and netizens, and the crucial basis for innovating society governance through the Internet. In order to ensure the Internet operating healthily in accordance with the law, we would give full play to the advantages and functions of the CFIS, mobilize and organize online social organizations at all levels and Internet enterprises to participate in comprehensive management of Internet, give support to legislation and popularity of cybersecurity, cooperate with the government to the early promulgation of The Personal Information Protection Law and actively push forward the construction of industry self-discipline.
In response to the audience’s question on what the government has done to protect personal information, Ren Xianliang said that the government has attached great importance to cybersecurity legislation and enacted the Cybersecurity Law, which has taken effect since June 1, 2017. It made clear requirements for the use of personal data. The National People’s Congress and other supervisory government agencies had improved the level of personal data protection through meticulous investigations and strict management on the Internet industry. China’s public security departments, telecommunication and other departments have stepped up law enforcement, effectively inhibiting the abuse of citizens’ personal information and thus improved the overall level of privacy protection in the whole society. He further pointed out that China had initially established a personal data protection system integrating legislation, justice and law enforcement. The Chinese government is also stepping up its study, and in due course it would introduce a special legislation to protect personal data and privacy, so as to comprehensively upgrade the level of citizens’ privacy protection by law.