[Editor to fill: 200-word domain overview.]
§ DOMAIN · MINORS PROTECTION
Minors Protection.
未成年人保护
Personal information of children and minors, gaming time limits, age-verification requirements, and the Minors Online Protection Regulations.
The legal corpus.
9 laws.
- REGULATION Regulations on the Protection of Minors in Cyberspace 未成年人网络保护条例
- Children's PI Provisions Provisions on the Online Protection of Children's Personal Information 儿童个人信息网络保护规定
- Children in Distress PI Measures Working Measures for the Protection of the Personal Information of Children in Distress 困境儿童个人信息保护工作办法
- Minors Protection Law Law on the Protection of Minors 中华人民共和国未成年人保护法
- School Protection Provisions Provisions on the Protection of Minors by Schools 未成年人学校保护规定
- Minors PI Audit Reporting Announcement Announcement on Submitting Reports on the Compliance Audit of Minors' Personal Information Protection 关于报送未成年人个人信息保护合规审计情况的公告
- Minors Harmful-Info Classification Measures Measures for the Classification of Online Information That May Affect the Physical and Mental Health of Minors 可能影响未成年人身心健康的网络信息分类办法
- Minors Platform Identification Measures Measures for Identifying Network Platform Service Providers with a Very Large Number of Minor Users and a Significant Impact on Minors 未成年人用户数量巨大和对未成年人群体具有显著影响的网络平台服务提供者认定办法
- Minors' Internet Use Provisions (Draft) State Council Provisions on Ensuring Minors' Healthy and Safe Use of the Internet (Draft for Public Comment) 国务院关于保障未成年人健康安全使用网络的规定（征求意见稿）
In this domain.
6 briefs.
- § 01 · MINORS
Draft State Council Provisions on Minors' Internet Use: A Ban on Stranger Social Networking, Minors' Mode by Default Under 16, and Filing for Devices and Platforms
On September 18, 2026, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) released the draft State Council Provisions on Ensuring Minors' Healthy and Safe Use of the Internet for public comment. Comments closed October 17, 2026. DCC has translated the 25 articles, the notice, and the CAC's Explanation in full. Against the 2024 Regulations on the Protection of Minors in Cyberspace, the draft adds five things. It bans online social networking with strangers for minors (except self-supporting 16- and 17-year-olds), and extends the virtual-intimacy ban from AI companions to all network services. It makes minors' mode the only way to serve under-16s with audio and video, live-streaming, games, social networking, and AI services that may affect minors' cognition. It turns minor-user identification into a stand-alone duty, with methods that include one-time facial verification and behavioral recognition. It reaches smart terminal manufacturers and app distribution platforms. And it creates a minors' mode filing system: providers that offer a minors' mode file with the provincial cyberspace administration, while platforms identified as having a very large number of minor users and a significant impact on minors file with the national cyberspace administration through the provincial office and report on their minors' mode. Fines reach 10 times illegal gains or RMB 1 million. The effective date is blank, but the year reads 2026.
- § 02 · MINORS
CAC Opens the First Identification Round for 'Article 20' Platforms: Who Must Self-Report a Large Minor Audience, and by When
On October 16, 2026, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) launched the first round of identification under the Measures for Identifying Network Platform Service Providers with a Very Large Number of Minor Users and a Significant Impact on Minors (国信办发文〔2026〕2号, effective April 1, 2026). DCC translates the announcement and its work guide in full. Platforms that meet the numeric thresholds must self-assess and file within 20 working days, which on DCC's count lands in mid-November 2026. The thresholds are 10 million registered or 1 million monthly active users for minor-directed services, and 10 million registered or 1 million monthly active minor users for general-audience services. Platforms caught by a six-factor impact test are expected to file too. Paper filings go to the provincial cyberspace administration. Platforms on the final list take on the extra duties of Article 20 of the Regulations on the Protection of Minors in Cyberspace: minors-impact assessments, a minors' mode, an independent external supervisory body, platform rules, and an annual social responsibility report. For serious breaches of two of them (the impact assessment, and cutting off harmful on-platform businesses), Article 54 allows fines of up to RMB 50 million or 5% of the previous year's turnover.
- § 03 · MINORS-PROTECTION
The School Is Not a Bystander: Three Model Cases on Schools' Duties in Minors' Online Protection
Minors' online protection is usually framed as a job for parents and platforms. Three model cases — a Guangzhou Internet Court judgment on defamation in a parent–school WeChat group, a Supreme People's Procuratorate case where procuratorial recommendations pushed a school to build bullying-control systems after a privacy video spread, and a Zhejiang case where a predator used an unauthorized school-named 'confession wall' account to reach students — show Chinese courts and procuratorates deliberately pulling schools into the frame. JunHe's education team distills the school's three statutory functions: internet-literacy education (Minors Protection Law Arts. 64 and 70, Online Protection Regulations Art. 16), cyberbullying prevention and response (Minors Protection Law Art. 39; School Protection Provisions Art. 21), and internet-addiction intervention (Minors Protection Law Art. 71; Regulations Art. 40). The liability stack for schools that do nothing: administrative correction orders and sanctions under Regulations Art. 51, plus civil supplementary liability under Civil Code Art. 1201. Four recommendations follow: documented literacy and AI-content-discrimination education, a staffed-up 'rule-of-law vice principal' mechanism, a full discover–stop–report–handle bullying protocol, and compliance with device-management and anti-addiction requirements. With 196 million minor netizens at 97.3% penetration, the authors argue schools are the 'main battlefield' whether they like it or not.
- § 04 · AI-COMPANION
Doubao, Qwen, and NetEase Pull AI Companions Ahead of July 15 — Is Delisting to 'Stay Safe' the Right Move?
Days before the AI Anthropomorphic Interaction Measures take effect on July 15, 2026, Doubao, Qwen, and NetEase removed agent-style companion features — and at least one AI company had already received a question list from regulators. This translated report from 竞争秩序场 (reporter Wang Jun) maps why the industry calls the rules right in direction but hard in practice: scoping ambiguity around role-play on general-purpose models and UGC agent builders, 'capability regulation' that runs through model training and operations rather than content filters, the psychology-grade judgment needed to spot excessive emotional dependence, and expert warnings that clumsy intervention or perceived surveillance of intimate chats could do its own harm. Includes proposals for public safety-capability toolkits for smaller developers.
- § 05 · AI-COMPANION
Ten Questions Before July 15: A Compliance Q&A on China's AI Anthropomorphic Interaction Measures
Two days before the Interim Measures for the Management of AI Anthropomorphic Interaction Services take effect on July 15, 2026, compliance practitioners Chen Huan and Li Qiyao distill the final text into ten questions AI companies keep asking: what counts as an anthropomorphic interaction service (and what is excluded), the content red lines, training-data duties, mandatory registration fields including age and emergency contacts, the two-hour usage reminder, the ban on virtual intimate relationships for minors, the separate-consent gate on training with sensitive interaction data, the five security-assessment triggers, and the penalty ladder topping out at RMB 200,000 where life and health are harmed.
- § 06 · AI-GOVERNANCE
China's AI-Companion Rule Takes Effect July 15 — A Clause-by-Clause Field Guide to What Actually Changed
China's Interim Measures for AI Anthropomorphic Interaction Services (人工智能拟人化互动服务管理暂行办法) — the world's first dedicated rule on 'companion'-style AI — take effect on 15 July 2026. This DCC brief synthesises three Chinese-language readings published in the days before the effective date: 数据合规肖大国's article-by-article practitioner walkthrough, 网安寻路人 (Hong Yanqing)'s multi-part work on how to scope anthropomorphic interaction (including his 'Sentiment Interaction Event / SIE' indicator system), and AI前沿信息笔记's read of the business-model logic the rule is really aimed at. Three throughlines: (1) what changed between the consultation draft and the final text — real fines were added, a 'continuity (持续性)' qualifier now narrows scope, the emergency-contact duty was widened beyond vulnerable groups, and the mandatory 'human takeover' of at-risk conversations was dropped; (2) the scope question the rule leaves under-specified — which services are 'continuous emotional interaction' at all — and the SIE-style indicator approach practitioners are reaching for to answer it; and (3) the paradigm shift the rule marks, from *content-safety* governance (AI as tool) to *relationship* governance (AI as social role), which finally gives regulators a handle on attention-economy and emotional-dependency business models. For overseas counsel shipping companion, emotional-AI or character-AI products into China: this is the operational checklist and the open-question list, two weeks out.