Law strong shield against personal info misuse: China Daily editorial

In what we readily refer to as the "information age", frequent, compulsory sharing of critical personal information has become an accepted precondition for access to essential day-to-day services.

Handled in good faith, such sharing may greatly facilitate e-commerce and business-consumer interactions. Unfortunately, with the internet permeating more deeply and broadly into every corner of our lives, good faith has often been discarded on the wayside. Service providers have become seemingly willing to do everything in their capacity to exploit the commercial potential of such information.

So much so that trade in consumer information has become a thriving business across the country. The ease with which essential personal information, from phone numbers to home address to shopping habits, can be sold and bought on the black market, in bulk, on the cheap, is probably unimaginable to many.

Yet as a result of such transactions, online businesses can manipulate prices for potential buyers, advertisers can bombard targeted audiences with tailored offers and people can fall victim to scams.

Abusive use of consumer information has become so pervasive in the country that few businesses can claim innocence. The few largest and most powerful internet service providers have all been found culpable by regulatory authorities, triggering a round of rectifications.

With the country's Personal Information Law coming into effect on Monday, hopes are high that the legislation will usher in a new chapter where all businesses and institutions with access to personal information will handle it responsibly and conscientiously. The law fills a critically important legislative blank, drawing bottom lines regarding the proper use of personal information. It is no surprise some domestic media outlets have called it "epoch-making" and "historic".

But it would be blind optimism, if not naivety, to assume the exploitation of personal information has become a thing of the past.

A number of major internet platforms and service providers have indeed updated their corresponding rules and operating protocols. But that is far from meeting the law's requirements. Their problems, ranging from excessive collection to inadequate storage and management to improper use of consumer information, must be examined throughout their entire business operations and corrected where necessary.

The corresponding authorities have made new regulations to match the new law. But to add teeth to it, to actually rein in the rampant abuse of personal information, there have to be more specific rules to make the principles of the law executable.