China poised to escalate crackdown on privacy for foreign businesses

Foreign businesses will be subject to a raft of new rules - including keeping servers and user data in China and handing over encryption keys - if new anti-terrorism laws which are due to be read in parliament this week are subsequently adopted.

02 March 2015

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The Obama administration has communicated its concerns about the draft law, and experts believe that the law could provoke another US-China clash over cybersecurity. One IT specialist said: 'It’s a disaster for anyone doing business in China. You are no longer allowed a VPN that’s secure, you are no longer able to transmit financials securely, or to have any corporate secrets. By law, nothing is secure.'

Highly concerned

Scott Kennedy, of the Project on Chinese Business and Political Economy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said: 'Given the recent spate of AML-related (anti-monopoly law) cases against foreign firms, the regulations about the banking sector, and the reduction of foreign firms’ products on government procurement lists, there is good reason for foreign firms to be highly concerned.' Source: re/code