China published its draft traffic law, adding data-security duties for autonomous vehicles

China’s National People’s Congress opened the revised Road Traffic Safety Law for public comment on August 28, one of five drafts released that day, with comments due by September 26. The published draft runs to nine chapters and 170 articles, and an accompanying explanation from the State Council set out its provisions on autonomous vehicles.

Under Article 96, an autonomous vehicle may be driven on roads only after passing a road traffic rule compliance test and being registered. Articles 97 and 103 place responsibility for traffic violations on the producing or importing enterprise, with implementing measures to be drafted under the State Council’s public security department. Article 99 extends compulsory motor traffic accident liability insurance to autonomous vehicles.

Articles 100 and 102 set out what the explanation calls strengthened enterprise responsibility. They require producers and importers to ensure the road driving safety, network security and data security of autonomous vehicles, and state that they must not make false or exaggerated claims about autonomous driving functions. The explanation positions the revision alongside the Cybersecurity Law and the Personal Information Protection Law.

The explanation also described the drafting process: the Ministry of Public Security prepared the review draft, and the Ministry of Justice consulted 65 central bodies and provincial governments twice before a State Council executive meeting approved it. By Monday afternoon in Beijing the traffic law draft had drawn 7,592 comments from 5,024 people. The four other drafts released the same day, covering enterprise bankruptcy, banking supervision, water and cross-border corruption, had between 28 and 87 comments each.