On December 26, 2009, the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress passed a landmark new law that contains provisions affecting personal data. The new law will go into effect on July 1, 2010.
The P.R.C. Tort Liability Law is a wide-ranging law that imposes tort liability for matters ranging from environmental damage to product liability to animal bites. Certain of its provisions relate, expressly or in a general sense, to personal information. These provisions can cause data users to incur liability to data subjects for the mishandling of personal information.