Data Security Law to reduce security risks

With the integration of digital technology and the real economy in recent years, and the fast development of new business models such as sharing economy, online education, e-commerce, telecommuting and smart medical care, data has become a key factor in the transformation and upgrading of China's economic structure and optimization of governance.

However, the security risks in data collection and utilization cannot be ignored. Data leakage, excessive collection and illegal trading not only pose a threat to people's safety, privacy and property, but could even endanger national security. That's why the Data Security Law, which came into effect on Wednesday, has been welcomed by all.

The law aims to build a mechanism for safeguarding data security and enhancing governance, as well as strengthen the country's big data policy.

High mobility and low-cost duplication of data mean any set of leaked data can exchange hands across the world in no time.

To prevent that, the Data Security Law proposes to build a data classification and hierarchy protection system in data circulation; establish a data security risk assessment, reporting, information sharing, monitoring and early warning mechanism; and set up a data security emergency handling mechanism and a national data security review system.

The implementation of the new law means China has walked the talk in terms of data security, but it still needs to improve its supporting systems, encourage research, promote ethics building and improve the social supervision mechanism to make the law more workable.

To enhance the operability of the law, the country should formulate detailed provisions and corresponding supporting regulations, methods and guidelines, and make clear the conditions, standards and procedures on data classification and hierarchy protection, data security risk assessment, and data security emergency response mechanism.

It should also strengthen the building of a joint academic innovation platform and encourage the establishment of an interdisciplinary academic research system, so as to allow academic research to play a bigger role in strengthening national data security governance.

The country should also strengthen the data protection system, and establish and improve the accountability mechanism, and encourage data and algorithm technology developers and enterprises to cultivate such values as "respecting citizens' privacy rights" and "attaching importance to data security risks" in order to better safeguard personal data.