Officials call for better governance through data regulation
Data have become crucial for economic development and urban governance.
Chinese lawmakers and political advisers are stressing the importance of data regulation to promote better governance at the ongoing Two Sessions.
Members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and delegates of the National People's Congress suggested a standard to regulate data.
Deputy chairman of the Shanghai Committee of the China National Democratic Construction Association Zhang Zhao'an, a national political adviser, suggested more scrutiny of the cross-border data flow and creation of a standard technical protocol.
He said different tiers of data should be classified, because they have become crucial for economic development and urban governance and there are underlying risks in data transmissions, storage and applications.
Baidu Chairman Robin Li proposed for data to become more accessible and searchable for sharing across different platforms, and providing internet users easy access to information.
He also suggested that relevant authorities should select areas to build information-sharing mechanisms across Internet platforms on a trial basis, which would break down the existing “information barrier” on different websites and promote the free flow of information and knowledge.
User postings and comments on certain news sites are sometimes only accessible within the applications and not available for search engines.
He thinks relevant government agencies should increase security supervision of Internet platforms in terms of data sharing.
