China’s Internet Controls Will Get Stricter, to =?UTF-8?Q?_Dismay_of_Foreign_Business_=

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: November 8, 2016 at 12:09:51 PM EST
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] China’s Internet Controls Will Get Stricter, to =?UTF-8?Q?_Dismay_of_Foreign_Business_=
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> China’s Internet Controls Will Get Stricter, to Dismay of Foreign Business
> By PAUL MOZUR
> Nov 7 2016
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/business/international/china-cyber-security-regulations.html>
>
> HONG KONG — In August, business groups around the world petitioned China to rethink a proposed cybersecurity law that 
> they said would hurt foreign companies and further separate the country from the internet.
>
> On Monday, China passed that law — a sign that when it comes to the internet, China will go its own way.
>
> 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.
>
> Officials say the rules will help stop cyberattacks and help prevent acts of terrorism, while critics say they will 
> further erode internet freedom. Business groups worry that parts of the law — such as required security checks on 
> companies in industries like finance and communications, and mandatory in-country data storage — will make foreign 
> operations more expensive or lock them out altogether. Individual users will have to register their real names to use 
> messaging services in China.
>
> 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.
>
> But in many ways, the regulations are not likely to have a major impact on much about how business is done. Most of 
> the rules are already in effect, but not codified. Other parts are vague enough that the government will determine 
> their meaning on the fly.
>
> 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.
>
> Calling it a “basic law,” Chen Jihong, a partner at the Zhong Lun law firm in Beijing, said 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.
>
> “The law only stipulates principles; it would take follow-up laws or interpretations to specify the standards,” he 
> said.
>
> 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 final law did soften a few elements. In particular, a second draft of the law said foreign businesses did not 
> need to keep all of their data inside China — just important business data collected within China or about Chinese 
> consumers.
>
> [snip]
>
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/>



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