China Passes New Law To Tighten Cyber Security

China, on Monday, passed a law to further tighten cyber security, a decision which has raised concerns that it could intensify already wide-ranging Internet censorship.

The new rules, which were approved by the country’s rubber-stamp parliament and will go into effect next summer, are part of a broader effort to better define how the internet is managed inside China’s borders.

Business groups, in August, had petitioned the Government to have a rethink on the proposed cyber security law, saying that it would hurt foreign companies and further separate the country from the internet.

Officials on the other hand, say the rules would help stop cyber attacks and help prevent acts of terrorism, while critics have argued that it would only further erode internet freedom.

Restrictions on the flow of data across borders “provide no security benefits but will create barriers to Chinese as well as foreign companies operating in industries where data needs to be shared internationally,” James Zimmerman, Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, wrote in an emailed statement.

He added that by creating such restrictions, China risked isolating itself technologically from the rest of the world.

Also contained in the law, individual users are expected to register their real names to use messaging services in China.
Human Rights Watch said on Monday, that it was concerned about several aspects of the law, including that it calls for real-name registration for users of Chinese instant messaging services.

“The already heavily censored internet in China needs more freedom, not less,” the group’s China Director, Sophie Richardson, wrote in a statement.

“Despite widespread international concern from corporations and rights advocates for more than a year, Chinese authorities pressed ahead with this restrictive law without making meaningful changes.”

The law, however, is an important statement from Beijing on how the internet should be run: with tighter controls over companies and better tracking of individual citizens.

Referring to it as a “basic law,” Chen Jihong, a partner at the Zhong Lun law firm in Beijing, stated that the rules were set up to deal with the growing number of legal issues regarding the Chinese internet and to seek to strike a balance between privacy and security.