Regulation to make online world safe for minors

A new regulation on protecting minors in cyberspace will come into effect from Jan 1, marking further improvement in China's cyberspace governance system.

The regulation stresses enhancing minors' internet literacy, while guiding them to distinguish between good and harmful content online. The regulation authorizes the education departments and cyberspace administration departments to jointly develop evaluation indicators for minors' internet literacy, and to introduce internet literacy at schools.

Besides, schools, libraries and youth centers should provide a safe and healthy online environment while companies are encouraged to develop minor modes and minor zones, accord to the regulation. It is necessary for all sectors of society to build a good filter to screen out bad and illegal content for the minors. The regulation clarifies that no organization or individual shall use text, pictures, audio and video, and other media in a way that constitutes insult, slander, threat or subjects minors to online bullying. Also, functional modules should be put in place to limit the single-day cumulative expenditures spent on online games by the minors in order to prevent them from getting addicted to network games.

The regulation specifically includes a chapter on protecting personal information under the personal information protection law. While admitting to the need for personal information processors to collect and process minors' personal information, it also stipulates that the processors shall not force minors or their guardians to agree to nonessential personal information processing behavior, and use the "minimum authorization principle" to limit the range of personnel who can access this kind of information and avoid internal employees leaking it.

Overall, the approval of the regulation marks a new stage in China's protection of minors in cyberspace.