Most Chinese cautious about requests by apps for mobile phone data: Survey

BEIJING -- About 88.5 percent of respondents in a recent survey said they will be cautious in giving permission to mobile apps to access mobile phone sensors and data.

The survey on mobile security was conducted by China's cybersecurity authorities from Sept 4 to 10 and more than 320,000 questionnaires were collected.

About half of the respondents said they would carefully read the privacy policy popping up when opening an app for the first time or before updating it, according to the survey.

A total of 40.4 percent participants said they would try to find out if there are provisions related to the protection of children in the privacy policy.

The survey also showed 77.8 percent of the respondents agreed that regulators should increase punishment for violations and 72.2 percent proposed legislation on personal data protection.

Cheng Duofu, head of a special work group against personal information misuse, said the survey implied the participants have increasingly stronger sense of personal information protection and also have the knowledge and skill to protect such information.