Filed under important-data
Every brief tagged "important-data".
- § 01 · SECURITY-REVIEW
One Company, Four Reviews: JunHe Maps China's Security-Review 'Matrix' in the Security-First Era
With the Measures for Network Data Security Risk Assessment (Order No. 24) in place, China's security-review architecture has four operating pillars: foreign investment security review (NDRC + MOFCOM), cybersecurity review (CAC + 12 departments), data export security assessment (CAC), and the new normalized network data security risk assessment (CAC coordination + sectoral authorities). JunHe lawyer Chen Sijia walks each regime through the same five questions — who reviews, what is reviewed, when review is triggered, and with what legal consequences — and lands on two points overseas counsel should not miss. First, the four regimes differ in kind: the first three are ex-ante, admission-style reviews with veto power, while the risk assessment is an annual, improvement-oriented 'physical exam.' Second, review decisions are effectively final — the mainstream view treats them as final administrative acts with no administrative reconsideration or litigation available — so cooperation during the review is the only real strategy. A closing lifecycle walkthrough shows how a single AI-model company can trip all four lines in sequence: FDI review at fundraising, cybersecurity review at GPU procurement, export assessment at model training, cybersecurity review again at foreign listing, and the annual risk assessment as a standing duty.
- § 02 · CROSS-BORDER
The Negative-List Map, Region by Region: Ten Zones, Two Models, and the Year Data Export Went Province-Wide
As of July 2026, ten Chinese regions — nine free-trade zones plus the Hainan Free Trade Port — have published data-export negative lists under Article 6 of the 2024 Cross-border Data Flows Provisions, and this year Beijing and Shanghai took the mechanism province- and city-wide, off the FTZ footprint entirely. DCC's roundup maps the full set: which sectors each zone lists (from Tianjin's 13 commodity categories to Guangdong's smart-manufacturing and personal-credit fields, Chongqing's intelligent-connected-vehicle chain, and Jiangsu's biopharma-only list), the two management models that have crystallized — pre-export filing versus Shanghai and Guangdong's 'transfer-first, report-after' — and how an overseas team should read the map. Compiled from the CAC's national negative-list index and each region's official notice, and paired with DCC's new downloadable negative-list registry.
- § 03 · IMPORTANT-DATA
Are You Caught by the Annual Assessment? TRIMPS's Self-Identification Guide for 'Important-Data Handlers'
With the Network Data Security Risk Assessment Measures (Order No. 24) taking effect August 20, 2026, the annual risk-assessment duty stops being a principle and becomes a hard calendar event — but only for 'important-data handlers' (重要数据处理者). DCC's summary of a self-identification guide from the Data Security R&D Center of the Ministry of Public Security's Third Research Institute (公安部三所 / TRIMPS), author Lü Mingxuan, walks the threshold test the institution that helps draft the standards wants processors to run before the clock starts. There are three independent gates, any one of which puts you in: (1) you process data meeting the 'important data' definition under Article 62 of the Network Data Security Management Regulation; (2) the deeming rule — you process the personal information of more than 10 million people, which pulls you into the important-data duties of Regulation Arts. 30 and 32 regardless of whether you hold any 'important data'; or (3) your data sits on a regional, departmental, or sectoral important-data catalogue. Entrusted processors inherit the duty from an important-data-handler client; CIIO status and important-data-handler status are separate, intersecting tests; and identifying important data runs through GB/T 43697-2024 Appendix G's 18 factors plus the applicable catalogues. The guide then lays out the operating requirements once you are in: annual mandatory assessment plus trigger-based instant assessments, a stacked PIPIA for the 10-million-PI cohort, three-year report retention, and submission within 20 working days. DCC's read for overseas counsel: classification is the gate, the 10-million-PI deeming rule is the trap for consumer businesses with no 'important data' at all, and the self-ID needs to happen now.
- § 04 · RISK-ASSESSMENT
From Principle to Running System: How the Network Data Security Risk Assessment Measures Operationalize the Data Security Law
On June 18, 2026 the CAC, MIIT and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the Measures for Network Data Security Risk Assessment as Order No. 24, effective August 20, 2026. The 25-article rule adds no new substantive duty; it turns the Data Security Law's open-ended 'conduct risk assessment' obligation into an executable, verifiable, trigger-able governance system. DCC reads it as a three-tier standing model plus an event-driven escalation layer: important-data handlers must assess every year (general-data handlers are encouraged to every three), retain the report for three years and submit it within 20 working days; sectoral competent authorities run annual inspection plans filed by end-January; the national cyberspace administration consolidates and cross-shares reports with telecom, public-security and state-security departments; and where a high-risk finding or a breach of important data or large-scale personal information appears, regulators can compel assessment by a certified institution and order the operator to cease processing important data. The four institutional increments over the DSL: an annual mandatory action, networked multi-department supervision, a three-track assessment structure, and dynamic event-triggered oversight.
- § 05 · CRITICAL-INFORMATION-INFRASTRUCTURE
Are You a CII Operator or an Important-Data Handler? A Practitioner's Assessment Framework Under China's New Rules
China's Cybersecurity Law, Data Security Law, and Network Data Security Management Regulations impose materially heavier compliance obligations on critical information infrastructure (CII) operators (关键信息基础设施运营者) and important-data handlers (重要数据处理者) than on ordinary data processors. This brief, drawing on a DEXC+ practitioner analysis by Gu Qingzhuo (古青卓) of the Shenzhen Data Exchange compliance team, explains how the two statuses are determined under the current framework, why neither is self-evident from a company's own assessment alone, how recent rules — including the Regulations on Promoting and Regulating Cross-Border Data Flows and the national standard GB/T 43697-2024 — have clarified but not fully resolved the important-data identification problem, and what overseas counsel should do when advising clients that operate in China's critical sectors.
- § 06 · DATA-TRADING
Mapping the Red Lines: Compliance Assessment for Surveying and Geographic-Information Data Products on a Chinese Data Exchange
When Sichuan province's first surveying and geographic-information (测绘地理信息) data product was listed on the Shenzhen Data Exchange (深圳数据交易所), the compliance team from Si Chuan Rui Li Heng Law Firm worked through a seven-point assessment framework that goes well beyond general data-trading rules. This brief walks overseas counsel through that framework: why the surveying-and-mapping regime (测绘法 and subordinate rules) adds a specialist qualification layer on top of the Network Data Security Management Regulations; how the classified-surveying-results (涉密测绘成果) screen works in practice; what 'important geographic-information data' (重要地理信息数据) means for tradability; and why data origin — self-collected versus purchased versus project-derived — changes the due-diligence checklist materially. The operational takeaway: for this sector, general data-exchange compliance is necessary but not sufficient.