Legislation Coming to Better Protect Personal Details, Spokesman Says

　　The 13th National People's Congress, the top legislature, holds a news conference in Beijing on March 4, 2019. [Photo by Kuang Linhua/chinadaily.com.cn]

A draft law on personal information is expected to come out soon, Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the second session of the 13th National People's Congress, told reporters at a news conference in Beijing on Monday.

"The Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress has included personal information in its legislation plan. Departments and authorities are now looking at it and are working on the draft," he said.

In recent years, with the rapid development of the internet and information technology, there have been incidents where personal information was improperly collected, abused and leaked, undermining people's rights, according to Zhang.

People are calling for the protection of personal information through legislation, not only to protect privacy and security of property, but to create a sound and healthy environment for the development of the internet, he said.

Zhang added that although there are a number of laws and regulations dealing with personal information protection, such as the Criminal Law, the General Principles of the Civil Law, the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Consumers and the e-commerce Law, legislation is still too scattered.

"So we need to have a law specifically on the protection of personal information to form a unified force of regulation," he said.