Shenzhen to outlaw digital profiling of kids to stave off Big Tech’s privacy intrusions
- A draft of new rules in China’s southern tech hub would classify personal data collected from minors as ‘sensitive’, limiting how it can be used
- The country’s national minors protection law, with a new chapter dedicated to online protections, takes effect today, Children’s Day in China
Shenzhen is reviewing a new regulation that would explicitly forbid apps from making personalised recommendations to users under the age of 18, a first for China as Beijing continues to push Big Tech to toe the state line.
The draft of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Data Regulation, first released for public consultation last summer, was updated last week, classifying data generated by minors as “sensitive” and barring companies from creating and employing user profiles based on data generated by minors.
“Profiling minors and serving them up personalised recommendations is problematic since minors lack judgment and the ability to resist temptations,” said He Yuan, executive director of Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Data Law Research Centre.
The new data regulation is the first of its kind to come from a local government. It also stipulates that all users have the right to opt out of both user profiling and personalised recommendations.
Once passed, the regulation could have a big impact on many companies that rely on recommendation algorithms for revenue, such as TikTok owner ByteDance. Machine learning recommendation engines – used to keep people on the platform longer and to display more relevant advertisements – have fuelled the growth of Big Tech around the world.
Amid an ongoing push from Beijing to protect minors online, China’s internet giants have been responding with measures to limit screen time for younger users.
