7 October
What happened on this date in privacy, anonymity networks and censorship. Every year on the same date we add a new look back and keep the earlier ones as they were.
2026
Import rules for the encryption in your phone
In mainland China, the encryption built into your phone or laptop counts as part of a mass-market consumer product, which is exempt from import licensing. That classification comes from the Regulations on the Administration of Commercial Cryptography, which China's State Council issued on 7 October 1999 and revised in 2023. China's Cryptography Law defines commercial cryptography as encryption used to protect information that is not a state secret. As quoted by the law firm Zhong Lun, the 1999 version allowed organisations and individuals to use only commercial cryptography products approved by the state cryptography authority. It also barred them from using products they had developed themselves or that were made abroad. The 2023 revision states that commercial cryptography used in mass-market consumer products is not subject to import licensing or export controls. Import licensing applies only to commercial cryptography on the import licence list, and readers who use their phones outside mainland China are not affected by these regulations.
Also on this day
- A royal rescript in Denmark–Norway restricted the press freedom granted the year before and clamped down on anonymous publishing. Source: Primary Sources on Copyright
- Taiwan's Council of Grand Justices held that the Publication Act's provisions for administrative agencies to suspend publications for set periods or revoke their registration directly fell within the necessity clause of Article 23 of the Constitution, and could not readily be found unconstitutional. Source: Constitutional Court (Taiwan)
- The German state of Hesse promulgated a data protection act, often described as the world's first. Source: Hessian Data Protection Commissioner