China Lays Out Guidelines for App Data Privacy

China is trying to curb excessive collection of personal information on apps.

The government recently released draft guidelines, advising app companies to inform users before changing data collection policies, provide easy access to those policies in no more than four clicks, inform users about the scope and use of data collected, set limits on collected data, and require user consent to pass data to third parties. The draft will be open for public comment until May 26.

The draft guidelines aren’t a set of regulations but a checklist for app providers of actions that Chinese authorities would consider illegal, Richard ...