China's personal information law comes into effect

BEIJING -- China's law on personal information protection came into effect on Monday.

The law, adopted at the 30th session of the 13th National People's Congress Standing Committee in August, has detailed provisions to strengthen the protection of personal information, especially that of online platform users.

Activities such as collection, application, processing and trading of personal information will be strictly monitored, and any related infringements will be punished, according to the law.

When making business decisions with the help of mass personal information, data collectors are forbidden from engaging in discriminatory practices that harm the interests of consumers, such as differentiating prices through user profiling, the law noted.

It added that online platforms with large numbers of users must come up with detailed rules to regulate the behavior of parties that provide services through these platforms, and set parameters for their data collection and processing activities.