Composite Score
71.0
out of 100
China has a comprehensive data-protection statutory framework — the Personal Information Protection Law (2021), the Data Security Law (2021), and the Cybersecurity Law (2017) — together establishing one of the most extensive bodies of digital-governance statute in the world. A designated supervisory authority is identified in the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC). On the question of artificial intelligence policy, a national AI policy is registered in the OECD AI Policy Observatory. China operates the world's largest deployed digital-identity system, with broad and consistent national issuance recorded in the public surveys, and the world's second-largest tracked data-center market by capacity. The ITU Global Cybersecurity Index 2024 places China in Tier 1 — a role-modelling posture across the legal, technical, organizational, capacity-development, and cooperation pillars.
With a composite of 71.0 out of 100, China sits in the upper third of the surveyed States — ranked 50th out of the 194 in Edition 0. The pillar profile is markedly bimodal: very high scores in Sovereign Haven Infrastructure (9.5), Technical & Operational Safeguards (9.0), and Universal Identifier & Agent Provenance (8.5); a notably lower score in Constitutional & Legal Foundation (3.5). The bimodality reflects a structural difference between China's data-governance model — in which the State is the primary holder of authority over data within its borders — and the Charter's framing — in which sovereignty resides with the individual and the institution against the State. The score reports the Charter's measurement of the Chinese public record against the Charter's specific definitions, not a judgment on the merits of either framing.
On the side of what helps China's posture as scored: a comprehensive statutory framework on data protection, a designated supervisory authority, a national AI policy registered in the OECD AI Policy Observatory, exceptional technical and infrastructure capacity, and a leading digital-identity system. On what the Charter's framing measures and has not yet observed in China's public record: limits on State authority over data (Article 4.1, 4.2); a narrowly framed capital-crime exception with independent judicial authorization and a public registry of access requests (Article 4.3); and a stated national-government policy refusing extraterritorial demands consistent with the Charter's specific definition (Article 4.4). The Charter's notion of these limits differs from the Chinese legal regime's framing, and this Edition's score reflects that difference rather than a judgment on the merits of either framing.
The complete IDSI Edition 0 (2026) report — methodology, sources, sub-indicators for all 194 States.
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Request a re-evaluation of People's Republic of China's entryWhat China is currently doing on data sovereignty. The links below lead to government databases, international legal trackers, and contemporaneous news. They are the public record from which the Custodian’s scoring is drawn — and the starting point for any reader seeking to understand the country’s posture in depth.
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