Chinese academic database fined over privacy breaches

China’s cybersecurity authority has fined its largest academic database for privacy breaches in a move researchers believe could be an excuse to crack down on the platform, which contains a trove of information useful to scholars outside the country.

This September, the Cyberspace Administration of China fined the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) ¥50 million (£5.5 million) for illegally handling personal information and ordered it to stop the practice, Chinese media reported.

According to the regulator, CNKI operated 14 apps that were used for illegal activities, including collecting personal information without consent and failing to publicly disclose or clearly state collection and usage rules.

It is not the first time CNKI – which is estimated to hold more than 90 per cent of scholarly publications published in the country – has been in hot water with Chinese regulators.

Last December, the country’s antitrust watchdog fined the database ¥87.6 million for monopolistic practices, including selling services at what authorities said was an unfairly high price.

This April, CNKI curtailed access to some of its resources for foreign users, feeding scholars’ worries that Beijing could be poised to make the whole database off limits to those outside China. The restriction was to be a response to a directive by Chinese security services to stem the flow of potentially sensitive information outside its borders.

Academics speaking to Times Higher Education at the time said they saw this as a defensive attempt by the Chinese government to control the flow of raw data outside the country.

The recent penalty, too, has scholars reading between the lines.

Bjorn Alpermann, assistant professor for contemporary Chinese studies at Würzburg University in Germany, wondered whether Beijing might have an ulterior motive.

“Whether this is the real reason for the procedure or whether it is about stronger censorship will be shown by whether at least the same – already restricted – access is restored,” he wrote in a thread on X, formerly Twitter.

He noted that, while data breaches could be a legitimate concern for the Chinese government, the flow of information from academic resources had been a “thorn in the side” of authorities.

“Viewed from this perspective…this factor cannot be dismissed out of hand in order to explain the punishment,” said Dr Alpermann.

If the Chinese government continued to restrict access to the platform, he said, it would appear to be targeting CNKI’s business model more broadly.

Hermann Aubié, a senior researcher at the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, agreed that time would tell the rationale behind this month’s crackdown, with CNKI ordered to pay the largest possible fine for the offence.

Still, he told THE, “it’s plausible the government is genuinely concerned about mishandled personal data”, given its preoccupation with digitising the economy.

“Let’s see if CNKI really abides by the requests of [regulators]. If it does, it may stay free of future fines. If not, the regulators may hit again,” he said.

“But, meanwhile, CNKI still enjoys a quasi-monopoly…a more significant pressure to behave better may come from more domestic competition, but the small players don’t seem to have a chance to grow as big as CNKI yet.”

pola.lem@timeshighereducation.com