Shanghai FTZ launches new cross-border data service centers

The five administrative bureaus under the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone officially launched service centers on Thursday to facilitate cross-border data flow and help better implement the recently released negative list for data export.

The centers will provide enterprises with services including cross-border data policy consultation, answering frequently asked questions and preliminary verification of the materials required by the negative list. After companies submit the required materials to overseeing government bodies, the verification results will be fed back to the enterprise within 15 working days.

A trial version of the negative list of data export in the Shanghai FTZ and its Lin-gang Special Area was released on Feb 8. The list was jointly released by the Cyberspace Administration of Shanghai, the Shanghai municipal data bureau, the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission, the administrative committee of Shanghai FTZ and the Lin-gang Administration.

The negative list has initially covered three areas of finance, shipping and commerce, with the exported data is further divided into two major categories of key data and personal information and includes 84 data items under six scenarios.

"Companies need professionals to tell them if they can apply to the negative list. The recently established service centers can provide such services. It can be understood that the centers bear some similarities to the pre-screening at the hospital's front desk," said Zhang Shuai, founder of Beijing Shufeng Technology Co Ltd.

The data export negative lists released in other FTZs in China, covering areas of artificial intelligence, biomedicine, automobiles, retailing and civil aviation can be referred in Shanghai. The negative list in Shanghai can also be replicated in other FTZs to coordinate data export in the country, according to local government officials in Shanghai.