Editor's note:Zhang Nan is an associate professor at the Academy for the Rule of Law, China University of Political Science and Law. The article reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

It's fantastic news that the fresh new Personal Information Protection Law is implemented today on November 1. This law will bring more security to Chinese citizens, especially at this time of the year.

First, this law bans lots of identification (ID) fraud and intrusion of personal privacy for online shoppers. November 11 is a huge sale day every year on many e-commerce shopping platforms. But actually, the pre-sale and early sale usually starts in late October. Many shoppers who like discounts and sales would pay pre-sale booking fees such as 50-yuan ($7.8) deposit for the item they would like to buy and keep the item in the shopping cart online.

The sale policies are so tempting and many online shoppers easily ignore the option of concealing their shipping addresses for the November sale. So, there has been news reporting that thousands of personal information shipping labels on deliveries have been revealed and traded illegally last November. This makes people grumpy and offended, but there is no specific law to regulate this field yet.

Secondly, as an associate law professor, I find the Chapter 4 "Individual's Rights in Personal Information Processing Activities" is so helpful. For instance, Article 44 designates that individuals shall have the right to make decisions on the processing of their personal information, and have the right to restrict or refuse the processing of their personal information by others, except as otherwise provided by any law or administrative regulation.

This gives individuals, such as online shoppers legitimate rights to protect their personal information, and a right of refusing or restricting if anything goes wrong. Article 45 is an extension of Article 44. It says individuals shall have the right to consult or copy their personal information from the personal information processor. In addition, this Article requests the personal information processor to provide the information on time.

Thirdly, Chapter 5 "Obligation of Personal Information Provider" provides "double security" to the individuals. The processors' obligation echoes with the individual's right.

Article 51 designates that information processors shall implement the following measures to ensure that their personal information process activities comply with the laws and administrative regulations based on the purpose of processing, means of processing, categories of personal information, impact on personal rights and interests and potential security risk and prevent unauthorized access as well as breach, tempering or loss of personal information: (1) formulating internal management system and operating system; (2) implementing classified management of personal information; (3) adopting corresponding security technical measures such as encryption and de-identification; (4) reasonably determining the operation privileges of personal information processing, and regularly conducting safety education and training for practitioners and so on.

This Article actually reduced my concern on regulating the behaviors of personnel who are processing the goods with personal information labels on them. This Article creates the obligation to the personal information processor to ensure their staff's behaviors are legal and proper.

Fourthly, Article 66 in the Chapter 7 "Legal Liabilities" works well together with the Articles related to rights and obligations. In my view, Article 66 is one of the most powerful rules in this new law.

It designates that where personal information is processed in the violation of this law, or the process fails to fulfill the obligation under this law, when the circumstances are serious, the departments preforming personal information protection duties at or above the provincial level shall order corrections, confiscate the illegal gains, and impose a fine of less than five percent of the previous year's turnover, and may order the suspension of relevant business or cessation of business operation for an overhaul, and notify the relevant authority to revoke the business permit or the business license.

The degree of penalty in this Article is serious, which shows China's determination on cracking down the illegal trading of personal information. This Article is also a great reminder to the personal information processors such as delivery companies or e-commerce platforms that they need to handle the information more carefully according to the new law, if they breach the new law, the punishment is quite serious.

At last, I am writing in this opinion article in two roles: as a law professor as well as an online shopper. I am very pleased to see this year people can shop in a more secure and comfortable way, and do not need to worry too much about the protection of our personal information, that this new law is really online-shopper friendly, I give it a 5-star customer review.

【原文链接】：https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-11-01/New-Personal-Info-Protection-Law-provides-more-security-for-e-shoppers-14PU1oIUX7y/index.html