China: Signed Global Data Security Initiative

On 8 June 2022, China, Kazahkstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan signed the Global Data Security Initiative. Under the initiative, the signatories agree to a number of principles considering international and cross-border data security, including cooperating on preventing global data security threats, opposing the abuse of information technology infrastructure to steal data or surveil citizens of other countries, and store and collect data in accordance with the laws of host countries. Furthermore, the signatory states expressed their commitments to concluding data transfer agreements and agreed that information technology businesses would not take advantage of users' dependence on their products or use backdoors to illegally obtain user data.