The three legal dimensions of China’s big data governance

Abstract Big data governance has emerged as an important area of focus in recent times. In this article, we study the state of big data governance in China, discuss the balance of interests in big data, and seek to develop the theory of big data governance in law. In the past years, some academic achievements have been made in big data governance theories, personal data protection, and data property rights protection based on existing research related to big data governance. However, conflicts of interest in big data have been under-studied and under-analyzed. In this article, we conduct an in-depth study of the state of big data governance in China and develop a theoretical framework for constructing multi-subject governance based on the interest balancing approach, including the allocation of personal data rights and the rights of a data controller, to resolve the conflicts of interests in big data governance in the areas of private law, public law, and industry self-governance.