Primary Taiwanese news agency Central News Agency (CNA) recently reported that, the Public Security Bureau of Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province recently fined a beef soup restaurant for providing consumers with open Wi-Fi for failing to fulfill its network security protection obligations. This restaurant provided free Wi-Fi, and you only need to enter a password to log in. They did not record the real names of customer users and was imposed an administrative penalty – the source of the law is the Cyber Security Law. Recently China has been strengthening domestic data security law enforcement, and law enforcement agencies have increased monitoring efforts and strengthened control intensity. There have been several recent cases of administrative penalties against restaurants, massage parlors and other small businesses and stores accused of not complying with the official network security requirements. China issued the Cybersecurity Law in 2016, emphasizing the maintenance of national sovereignty over cyberspace and national security control, and it came into effect on June 1, 2017. On this basis, the Data Security Law was later implemented on September 1, 2021, citing national security interests. Experts pointed out that these recent enforcement actions are a clear signal from Chinese authorities that any informal grace period is over and that companies, regardless of size, must comply with the country’s data privacy and data security laws. However, small businesses may be less able than larger businesses to take compliance measures that sometimes bring high costs.
Source: CNA, September 10, 2023
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202309100145.aspx