[Source] https://www.news.cn/politics/20260403/f41c2154feb9429da3e0e9fa78353823/c.html Comment Period: 2026年5月6日。
Chapter I: General Provisions
Article 1: These Measures are formulated on the basis of the Cybersecurity Law, Data Security Law, Personal Information Protection Law, Online Data Security Management Regulations, Measures on the Administration of Internet Information Services, Regulations on the Protection of Minors Online, the Online Data Security Management Regulations, and other laws and administrative regulations, so as to promote the healthy development and regulated use of digital virtual human information services and to protect the lawful rights and interests of citizens, legal persons, and other organizations.
Article 2: These Measures apply to the provision of internet information services to the public within the territory of the People’s Republic of China through digital virtual humans (hereinafter, “digital virtual human services”). Where laws or administrative regulations provide otherwise, follow those provisions.
Article 3: The state cybersecurity and informatization department is responsible for the overall planning and coordination of the nation's governance of digital virtual human services and related oversight and management efforts. The relevant State Council departments, such as for telecommunications, public security, culture and tourism, health, market regulation, financial regulation, radio and television, press and publication, film, and copyright, are responsible for the oversight and management of digital virtual human services within the scope of their respective duties.
Local cybersecurity and informatization departments are responsible for the overall planning and coordination of the governance of digital virtual human services and related oversight and management efforts within the corresponding administrative region. The relevant local departments, such as for telecommunications, public security, culture and tourism, health, market regulation, financial regulation, radio and television, press and publication, film, and copyright, are responsible for the oversight and management of digital virtual human services within the scope of their respective duties and administrative regions.
Article 4: The provision and use of digital virtual human services shall uphold the Core Socialist Values, comply with laws and administrative regulations, preserve national security and the societal public interest, and obey social mores, ethics, and morals, to create a positive online ecological environment.
Article 5: The application of digital virtual human services is encouraged in every field; promote application demonstrations so long as they are ensured to be AI for good, safe, and controllable, to improve the ecosystem of digital virtual human services. Support research, development, and innovation, and collaborative industry and university research, on digital virtual human technology, establish and complete the systems of technical standards for digital virtual humans, and actively participate in international rulemaking, exchanges, and cooperation.
Article 6: Relevant industry organizations are encouraged to strengthen industry self-discipline, establish and complete group standards, industry norms, and discipline management systems, and oversee and guide relevant entities in drafting and improving service regulations, strengthening entity responsibility, and accepting societal oversight.
Chapter II: Protection of Rights and Interests
Article 7: Where any organization or individual uses natural persons’ sensitive personal information for modeling, image generation, scene construction, or other activities, they shall obey the laws and administrative regulations and meet the following requirements:
(1) Obtain the natural persons’ independent consent, and truthfully, accurately, and completely notify them, in a conspicuous fashion using clear and easily understood language, of the purposes of the handling, its necessity, and its impact on personal rights and interests, as well as other matters provided for by laws and administrative regulations; and where the personal information of minors less than14 years-old is used, the independent consent of their parents or other guardians shall be obtained. Except as otherwise specified by laws and administrative regulations.
(2) After a natural person withdraws their consent, employ methods such as deletion of relevant personal information to eliminate the impact, and personal information must not be retained in any form or used for other purposes, except as otherwise provided by laws and administrative regulations. Except where parties have otherwise agreed, the digital virtual human shall also be cancelled.
(3) Respect the lawful rights and interests of others; the rights and interests of others in their image, reputation, honor, privacy, and personal information must not be infringed. Where the personal information of the deceased is used to carry out related activities, the deceased’s relatives may lawfully exercise corresponding rights in the deceased’s personal information for their own lawful and legitimate interests, except where the deceased made other arrangements before their death.
Article 8: Any organizations or individuals providing or using digital virtual human services must not malign, deface, or otherwise infringe on the personality rights of others, and digital virtual human services from which the identity of a specified natural person can be identified must not be provided without the consent of that specified natural person. Including but not limited to:
(1) Using the pen name, stage name, online alias, translated name, brand, name, or shortened name of other persons that have a definite degree of social recognizability;
(2) Using likeness or voice that is highly similar to specified natural persons.
Article 9: Any organizations or individuals providing or using digital virtual human services shall respect intellectual property rights and commercial ethics. The intellectual property rights lawfully enjoyed by others must not be infringed upon in using others’ text, art, photography, music, audio-video, or other works or pieces to produce digital virtual humans, as well as during the use of digital virtual humans by any type of entity.
Article 10: It is prohibited to entice minors to become addicted to digital virtual human services. Minors must not be provided with virtual relatives, virtual companions, and other virtual close relations, digital virtual human services that induce excessive spending or religious belief, as well as digital virtual human services that contain information that might impact the physical and psychological health of minors such that which might lead or induce minors to imitate unsafe behavior, carry out acts that violations social mores, produce extreme emotions, or cultivate bad habits.
Chapter III: Regulation of Services
Article 11: Any organization or individual providing or using digital virtual human services shall obey the laws and administrative regulations, respect social mores, ethics, and morality, and must not engage in any of the following activities:
(1) Generating or disseminating content that endangers the nation’s security, honor, and interests; incites subversion of state sovereignty or the overturning of the socialist system; incites separatism or undermines national unity; advocates terrorism, extremism, or historical nihilism; goes against the Core Socialist Values, public order, and good custom; carries out illegal religious activities; promotes ethnic hatred and discrimination; stirs up opposition between groups, disseminates obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, or the instigation of crimes; spreads rumors; or insults or defames others, harming the lawful rights and interests of others;
(2) Including content that harms the nation’s image in the design, dress or symbols, personality or preferences of digital virtual humans;
(3) Distorting or maligning the images of persons such as heroes and martyrs, twisting or altering the deeds and spirit of heroes and martyrs, using the images of persons such as heroes and martyrs for commercial purposes;
(4) Engaging in illegal activities such as false advertising for goods or services, maliciously inducing purchases, or telecommunications fraud;
(5) Using virtual digital humans to evade facial recognition, voice recognition, or other identity authentication mechanisms when laws or administrative regulations require that real identity information is to be provided;
(6) Infringing on the personal information rights, right to choose one’s profession, or other lawful rights and interests of the real person driver of a human-driven virtual human;
(7) Improperly registering or trading internet accounts;
(8) other conduct in violation of laws and administrative regulations.
Article 12: Any organization or individual providing or using digital virtual human services shall employ measures to consciously defend against and reject the generation and transmission of content with a negative impact on the online ecology, such as sexual innuendo or suggestive flirtation; horror or cruelty, or incitement of group discrimination.
Article 13: From the start of digital virtual human services, the digital virtual human service providers, service users, and the providers of online information content transmission services shall continuously display a conspicuous alert containing the text “digital human” in the area where the digital virtual human is presented for the entire process, and are to comply with state provisions related to the labeling of AI generated or synthesized content.
Article 14: Digital virtual human service providers and service users shall follow laws and administrative regulations to carry out data handling activities for specified purposes and within a specified scope, use data from lawful sources and implement responsibility for data security protections, employ suitable technical measures and other necessary measures to ensure the security of data storage and transmission, to prevent the leakage or improper use of data.
Article 15: Digital virtual human service providers and service users shall establish mechanisms such as for monitoring digital virtual human services’ security risks, early warning and emergency response, and prevention of addiction, and establish and improve systems for managing content orientation; allot technical capacities and personnel corresponding to the scale of operations, employ methods that combine technical measures such as AI and big data with manual review; strengthen the identification, monitoring, and early warnings for digital virtual human services, and record and store log information.
Where it is discovered that digital virtual human services are being used to engage in unlawful activities, measures such as dynamic identity verification, warnings, limited functions, or terminating services shall be promptly employed; and where major risks are discovered, the digital virtual human services shall be immediately suspended or terminated, deregistering the digital persons and eliminating the impact.
Article 16: Digital virtual human service providers shall enter into service agreements with technical support providers and service users, clarifying and ensuring content safety as well as content on the rights and obligations, such as data collection, use, and storage.
Article 17: Service providers that provide services for the transmission of online information content shall establish and improve systems for managing the orientation of content, allocate technical capacities and personnel corresponding to the scope of operations, perform content safety management responsibilities, optimize content review and account management responsibilities, strengthen management of user-published information, promptly address illegal and negative information, and store log information.
Article 18: Where digital virtual human services are used to provide human-like interactive artificial intelligence services, and users select to cancel specified service functions or leave the service, they must not be tricked or excessively induced to continue the services.
Encourage the adoption of necessary measures to conduct active intervention and professional assistance for user inclinations towards suicide, self-harm, or other threats to health and life.
Article 19: When digital virtual human services are used in areas such as government services, public management, and judicial activities, the principles of legality, reasonableness, propriety, and necessity shall be complied with, mechanisms for manual oversight review shall be set up; and users shall have the right to choose whether to accept or reject the digital virtual human services.
Chapter IV: Oversight Inspections and Legal Responsibility
Article 20: Digital virtual human service providers and the providers of services for the transmission of online information content shall establish mechanisms for digital virtual human users' appeals and public complaints and reports, set up convenient portals for appeals, complaints, and reports, and promptly address them and give feedback on the outcome.
Article 21: Digital virtual human service providers that have public opinion properties or the capacity for social mobilization shall perform formalities for filing algorithms and the modification or cancellation of filings in accordance with the Provisions on the Management of Algorithmic Recommendations in Internet Information Services.
Digital virtual human technical support providers are to perform filings, modifications, and cancellations of filings with reference to the preceding paragraph.
Article 22: Digital virtual human service providers providing internet information services with a public opinion character or having the ability to mobilize the public shall carry out security assessments in accordance with relevant state provisions.
Article 23: Cybersecurity and informatization departments and relevant departments are to carry out oversight inspections of digital virtual human services on the basis of their duties. Digital virtual human service providers, technical support providers, service users, and the providers of services that provide services for the transmission of online information content shall cooperate in accordance with law and provide the necessary support and assistance.
Article 24: Where these provisions are violated and laws and administrative regulations have other provisions, punishment is to be given in accordance with those provisions and civil liability is to be borne in accordance with law; where laws and administrative organs are silent, the relevant departments are to give warnings, circulate criticism, or order that corrections be made in a set period of time on the basis of their duties; and where corrections are refused, or the circumstances are serious, they are to order that the provision of services stops, and may give a concurrent fine of between 10,000 and 100,000 RMB; and where it involves harmful consequences endangering citizens’ life or health, a concurrent fine of between 10,000 and 200,000 is to be given.
Chapter V: Supplemental Provisions
Article 25: The meanings of the following terms used in these Measures:
“Digital virtual human” refers to a virtual digital image that exists in the non-physical world, and uses technologies such as graphics, digital image handling, or artificial intelligence, assisted by human or computer power, to simulate a human appearance; and possesses characteristics such as speech, behavior, interactive capabilities, or personality.
"Human-driven digital virtual human" refers to a virtual digital image that maps real-time expressions, actions, and voices of real people through motion capture technology.
"Digital virtual human service providers" refers to organizations or individuals that provide digital virtual human services.
"Digital virtual human technical support providers" refers to organizations and individuals that provide technical support for digital virtual human services.
"Users of digital virtual human services" refers to organizations and individuals that use digital virtual humans to produce, reproduce, or publish information.
Article 26: Where the state has other provisions on digital virtual human services’ engagement in fields and activities such as medical care, finance, news publication, and film, those provisions shall be complied with concurrently.
Article 27: These measures take effect on X/X/2026.
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