The People's Bank of China (PBoC) recently issued the Trial Measures for the Protection of Personal Financial Information/Data (Preliminary Draft) to relevant commercial banks in order to solicit their opinions.(1)

It has been reported that under the trial measures, banks and other financial institutions will be unable to obtain personal financial information from third parties that are illegally engaged in personal credit investigation activities. The trial measures also stipulate that financial institutions must not use an "all-inclusive authorisation" to obtain a data subject's consent to collect, process, use or transfer their personal financial information to other parties.

According to the PBoC's legislation schedule, the trial measures are expected to be finalised before the end of 2019. Banks and other financial institutions may or will likely be required to:

  • examine whether data provided by third-party data providers comes from a legitimate source; and
  • stop cooperating with parties that cannot guarantee the legitimacy of data sources.

Endnotes

(1) Further details are available here.

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