Technical Documentation of National Technical Committee 260 on Cybersecurity of Standardization Administration of China: Basic Safety Requirements for Generative Artificial Intelligence Services

• Authority: Chinese central government
• Jurisdiction: China
• Collections: Chinese law and policy
• Most recent activity: Enacted
• Most recent activity date: 2024-02-29

Risk subdomain coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the risk subdomain are explicitly described.

• Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
• Exposure to toxic content
• Compromise of privacy
• AI system security vulnerabilities
• False or misleading information
• Disinformation, surveillance, and influence at scale
• Governance failure
• Lack of capability or robustness
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• Unequal performance across groups
• Pollution of information ecosystem
• Cyberattacks, weapon development or use
• Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
• Overreliance and unsafe use
• Economic and cultural devaluation of human effort
• AI pursuing its own goals
• AI possessing dangerous capabilities

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has good coverage of approximately 12-14 subdomains, with strong focus on misinformation (3.1, 3.2), malicious actors (4.1, 4.2, 4.3), discrimination and toxicity (1.1, 1.2), privacy and security (2.1, 2.2), AI system safety (7.1, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4), and governance (6.5). Coverage is concentrated in content safety, misuse prevention, and technical robustness domains.

Sector coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the sector are explicitly described.

• Information
• National Security

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the sector are described.

• Trade, Transportation & Utilities
• Finance & Insurance
• Professional & Technical Services
• Scientific Research & Development Services
• Educational Services
• Health Care & Social Assistance
• Arts, Entertainment & Recreation
• Public Administration (excl. National Security)

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

The document governs generative AI services across multiple high-risk sectors including healthcare, finance, critical infrastructure, and education. It provides sector-specific safety requirements for medical information services, psychological counseling, financial information services, automatic control, and services for minors. The regulation applies broadly to all generative AI service providers operating in China.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding technical standard issued by China's Standardization Administration that supports the Interim Measures for the Administration of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services. It contains mandatory requirements ('shall', 'must') with specific enforcement mechanisms including filing procedures, safety assessments, and compliance verification.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: National Technical Committee 260 on Cybersecurity of Standardization Administration of China; Chinese central government
• Summary: The document is authored by National Technical Committee 260 on Cybersecurity under China's Standardization Administration, a government technical standards body. It explicitly supports the Interim Measures for the Administration of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services issued by the Chinese government.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer, AI_Deployer
• Entities: Service providers of generative AI services; Organizations or individuals that provide generative AI services
• Summary: The document explicitly targets 'service providers' defined as organizations or individuals providing generative AI services to the public within China. This includes both developers of foundation models and deployers of AI services.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: main oversight department (主管部门); Standardization Administration of China
• Summary: The document references the 'main oversight department' as the authority that receives filings and oversees compliance. Service providers must file with this department and submit assessment reports for review.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor, AI_Developer
• Entities: main oversight department (主管部门); third-party assessment agencies; in-house monitoring personnel
• Summary: Monitoring is conducted at multiple levels: government oversight departments review filings and assessments, third-party agencies can conduct assessments, and providers must employ internal monitoring personnel to track content quality and safety.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Plan and Design
• Collect and Process Data
• Build and Use Model
• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document comprehensively covers multiple AI lifecycle stages with primary focus on data collection/processing, model building, verification/validation, deployment, and operation/monitoring. It provides detailed requirements for corpus safety, model training, safety assessments, and ongoing monitoring of deployed systems.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• AI Models
• Foundation Models
• AI Systems
• Generative AI
• Open Weight / Open Source
• Task-specific AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly covers generative AI services, AI models, and foundation models. It does not explicitly mention frontier AI, general purpose AI, task-specific AI, predictive AI, or compute thresholds. It addresses open-source models through corpus licensing requirements but does not use the term 'open-weight.' The focus is specifically on generative AI systems that produce text, graphics, audio, and video content.