Concrete Analysis | How Hong Kong mall owners can stay abreast of China’s personal data protection law

China’s Personal Information Protection Law is an opportunity for Hong Kong retailers to strengthen their personalised advertising and marketing strategies

With cross-border travel yet to resume, the city’s retailers can tweak their privacy policies and app-based loyalty programmes to comply with the law

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China’s Personal Information Protection Law puts limits on how businesses collect and use sensitive personal information. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 12:01pm, 26 Jul 2022

China is taking an active approach to protect its citizens’ personal data, with the country’s first comprehensive personal data privacy law.

The Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), enacted last November, joins the Data Security Law and Cybersecurity Law in framing the legal landscape for data protection, establishing consumer consent as the legal basis for personal information processing in the country.

The law applies to all marketing campaigns that provide products and services to or analyse the activities of people from mainland China, and does not discern the location of brands and marketers. This means mall owners located outside the mainland, including those in Hong Kong, are affected by the PIPL.

Millions of mainland Chinese consumers who visited Hong Kong previously are likely to have left their personal information with their favourite shopping malls’ websites or apps. In 2019, same-day mainland Chinese visitors spent a total of HK$60.4 billion (US$7.7 billion), with 86.6 per cent allotted to shopping, according to data from Hong Kong Tourism Board.

Mainland Chinese visitors wait outside a luxury store at a shopping district in Hong Kong in this file photo from March 19, 2015. Photo: Reuters

In light of the PIPL, mall owners may wonder if and how they can continue to market to these customers. Unable to separate existing customer data based on location, they may worry about inadvertently breaching the PIPL’s requirements when carrying out their marketing activities.