On 5 September 2019 the Ministry of Education and seven other authorities published the Opinions on Guiding and Regulating the Orderly and Healthy Development of Educational Apps.(1)
In the opinions, "educational mobile Internet application[s]" or "Educational Mobile APP[s]" refer to mobile apps used by teachers, students and parents in educational and learning scenarios for teaching and management, student learning, home-school interaction and other related activities.
The opinions set the objective that all educational mobile apps must be registered by the end of 2019. To this end, providers of such apps must file details of their apps with provincial education administrations in their place of residence after obtaining internet content provider approval, a certificate of filing and network security graded protection approval. Registered providers of educational apps will need to update any relevant information with the relevant authorities before launching new apps.
The opinions also provide that educational app providers must specify the aims, methods and scope of collecting and using personal information and obtain users' prior consent. Further, educational app providers that collect and use the personal data of minors must obtain the prior consent of guardians.
Endnotes
(1) For further details in Chinese please see here.
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