Dentons Advises a Fortune 500 Pharmaceutical Group on Data Protection

Recently, a Data and Privacy Protection team led by Dentons' Shanghai office partner Ken (Jianmin) Dai and Beijing office senior partner Jet (Zhisong) Deng advised a Fortune 500 leading pharmaceutical group on protection of personal data and cross-border data transmission, from the perspective of China's Cyber Security Law and other related laws and regulations.

The team first got acquainted with the business model of this company and the characteristics of medical and healthcare enterprises through sending out questionnaires to the company and discussing with the client's in-house counsels, business units, IT departments, etc., and then assisted the company in comprehensively reviewing various scenarios and systems concerning the collection, use and cross-border transmission of personal data, involving various types of data subjects such as employees, suppliers, distributors, and consumers. Based on a deep understanding of China's Cyber Security Law and other related laws and regulations, and rich practical experiences, combined with knowledge of the Recommended National Standard "Information Security Technology – Personal Informational Security Standard" (GB/T 35273-2017) that will soon be implemented on May 1, 2018, the team provided professional legal risk assessment and compliance advice for the client, from the perspectives of key information infrastructure and important data determination, protection of personal data, and data cross-border transmission compliance.

With the Cyber Security Law coming into force on June 1, 2017 as a milestone, China has entered a new period of development in terms of legislation, law enforcement, judiciary, and practice in respect of personal data protection and cross-border data transmission. At the same time, the Cyber Security Law and other supporting laws and regulations have also brought new compliance challenges for companies operating in China, especially multinational corporations. Such enterprises need to pay close attention to these challenges.