The Cryptography Law of the People's Republic of China was adopted at the 14th session of the Standing Committee of the Thirteenth National People's Congress on October 26, 2019 and came into force on January 1, 2020. It is the first comprehensive basic law in the field of cryptography and an important component part of the national security law system in China. On December 30, 2019, Professor Zhou Hanhua, Deputy Director of CASS Law Institute, interpreted the Cryptography Law in an interview by the CCTV column “Topic in Focus”.

In the interview, Professor Zhou pointed out that China adopted the Regulations on the Administration of Commercial Cipher Codes in 1999, thereby bringing the cryptography onto the track of administration by law. However, for a long period of time, core cipher codes and ordinary cipher codes in China had been regulated by policies. The newly adopted Cryptography Law has brought core cipher codes, ordinary cipher codes and commercial cipher codes into the scope of regulation by a unified law, thus upgrading the legal norms on commercial cipher codes from administrative regulation to state law, which is of great significance to improving the national security law system.

Professor Zhou held that: “the Cryptography Law is an important legislation in the field of national security. It fills up a long-existing gap in the legal regulation of administration of cipher codes, and therefore is of fundament significance to bringing the cipher codes into the scope of administration by law, and to advancing administering the Internet by law, surfing the Internet by law, and providing Internet service by law.”

The following is a video link to the interview:

http://tv.cctv.com/2019/12/30/VIDEPlkByHR7PGoXN4d498mV191230.shtml