Rethinking personal data protection in the criminal law of China

This chapter discusses the characteristics of personal data and its status in China’s current legal framework and theory, while drawing analogies with some theories in the literature from common law jurisdictions. It examines when personal data will be protected by Chinese criminal law and aims to provide a critical analysis of the inadequateness of applying property law to the problem. China’s law reform efforts concerning data protection have been positive and in the right direction. Its laws in this area are now much closer to the General Data Protection Regulation than they are to the minimalist approach taken in the United States. Since the harm to privacy can result in serious collateral harm to individuals it is best to regulate data protection with public law including criminal law. It would appear that data protection laws aim to protect an impure public good and are the right approach for this purpose.