EIP Coffee BreakUpdates and Changes
2021年8月24日

China Finally Clamps Down on Facial Recognition Technology

Snippets of Court Cases, Provisions, and Key Observations about China’s IP Landscape

Around the end of July 2021, the Supreme People’s Court issued a new Provision concerning the application of law about a super-hot technology, facial recognition. This Provision is a legal explanation from the SPC explaining how the law should be applied or interpreted in a litigation.

This Provision emphasizes that facial information is sensitive biometric information. It is considered a type of personal information having the strongest social attributes, yet at the same time it is very easy to collect. It is fundamentally unique and unchangeable. Once leaked, it will cause extreme damage to individuals’ personal safety and property, and may even threaten public safety. Most importantly, the Provision emphasizes that protection of personal information is of great importance, and provides a lot more clarity on how various types of facial recognition technology would be considered with respect to their impact on an individual’s personal privacy rights.

We welcome such a change: China is finally becoming serious about personal information protection after so many years. This Provision will have a huge impact on the implementation of patents that use facial recognition technologies, and in turn will affect the value of such patents. As for whether it will affect such patent applications from the administrative order level, we will observe and see what happens now that the Provision has formally been implemented (1 Aug 2021).

Source: 最高法发布审理使用人脸识别技术处理个人信息相关民事案件的司法解释

About the Authors

Yolanda Wang is a Principal, Chinese Patent Attorney, and Chinese Patent Litigator at Eagle IP, a Boutique Patent Firm with offices in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Macau.

This article is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice or a legal opinion on a specific set of facts.

其他文章

IP Strategies for the Newly Released Implementation Regulations of the 4th Amendment of the Chinese Patent Law: Part 1: Delayed Examination

2024年1月25日
December 2023 appears to have been an exceptionally busy and fruitful month in the China patent space. Following the State Council’s approval of the long-awaited Patent Law Implementation Regulations (“Regulations”, similar to the CFR in the US) in November, the CNIPA finally made public the full text of the Regulations just before the arrival of […]

China’s Newest Examination Guidelines: Post-Filing Supplemental Data for Compounds (Part I)

2021年4月28日
Post-filing data in China has been a constant issue for many patent practitioners around the world. Examiners seem to require it often, and yet the rules regarding when it is acceptable have seemed much stricter than other jurisdictions worldwide. In fact, we tried to summarize the latest state of the law in an earlier blog […]

Do Invention and UM Patents Filed on the Same Day Rise and Fall Together?

2021年8月19日
Snippets of Court Cases, Provisions, and Key Observations about China’s IP Landscape Seminal Cases by the SPC Recently, the Intellectual Property Division of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) issued a list of seminal (精品) cases. Although China is not a case law country, such seminal cases issued by the SPC have high guiding impact for […]

China Releases Draft Implementation Guidelines for the Drug Administration Law

2022年6月2日
The latest draft implementation guidelines for China’s Drug Administration Law (“Guidelines”) are out and open for comment. Previously, the new implementation measures for early dispute resolution mechanisms for drug patents (“Patent Linkage Measures”) came into effect on July 4, 2021. The Guidelines indicate that the final approval of generic chemical drug applications for marketing approval […]

我们的过去活动

Top crossarrow-right