RESEARCH ON INFORMED CONSENT RULES IN THE COLLECTION OF PERSONAL BIOMETRIC INFORMATION IN CHINA

Abstract

Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, which came into effect in November of 2021, formally established the legal procedures concerning informed consent in the collection of personal information. The law specifies that personal biometric information is officially considered sensitive personal information. It imposes more stringent requirements for its collection and processing in order to ensure that the information rights of the information subjects remain protected. Based on the understanding of technical risks involved in securing personal biometric information, as well as the inherent risks of information privacy in general, this paper will systematically review the current rules concerning informed consent in the collection of personal biometric information as stipulated by Chinese laws and regulations, as well as other national standards. Taking existing issues as guidance, we will also explore the compliance and regulation of the commercial use of personal biometric information under the informed consent regulations by determining the most common instances in which these rules were violated in practice.