Legal Regulation of Smart Wearable Devices in China

A smart wearable device is a portable intelligent gadget worn directly on the body or integrated into clothes or accessories that along with other features such as portability, mobility, sustainability, interactivity and ease of control exploits the natural ability of human body or environment to exchange information with the user, monitor human health and provide entertainment via built-in sensors, wi-fi communication, multimedia technologies, integrated microchips, etc. There are diverse smart wearable devices such as watches, bracelets, massage tools of various types etc., with usage scenarios ranging from general business uses to professional medicine and health care. High demand and technological progress are boosting the market for smart wearable devices that becomes increasingly attractive. Notably, smart wearable devices are not only hardware but also powerful functionalities supported by applications and cloud computing that collect and generate large amounts of operating data, only to cause widespread concern due to the underlying privacy and data security issues. The paper explores how wearable devices collect data and what risks are involved while providing an overview of the applicable regulation in China and explaining the existing gaps (such as the term “consent” to be clarified in the effective law) and personal data anonymization problem, proposing advice for better regulation as well as the ways to specify the provisions for informed consent, dynamic assessment of anonymized data, etc.