The New Silk Road: a bumpy ride for Sino-European collaborative research under the GDPR?

Abstract

The Chinese New Silk Road initiative offers unique opportunities for setting up Sino-European research collaborations. Academic cooperation between countries that are rooted in completely different legal, cultural, and academic backgrounds might however also create new challenges. This article investigates the impact of these differences in the field of the protection of personal data, which is a topic that is currently high on the EU’s agenda. Whereas the protection of personal data is engrained in the European Union’s legal framework, this is not the case in China. This might be problematic, given the fact that scientific collaboration often entails the exchange of (sensitive) personal data. We explore to what extent the General Data Protection Regulation still allows the transfer of such data for scientific purposes to China. After having analyzed the Chinese system in light of the European legislation, we conclude that the sharing of personal data with China is challenging at a minimum. Until more stable legal arrangements are set up in order to facilitate such practices, it is important to share only anonymized data or to acquire consent of the data subject.