Beijing to issue guide on smartphone apps

China's Internet watchdog plans to issue a guideline on smartphone applications, Beijing News reported on Monday.

Peng Bo, deputy director of the Cyberspace Administration of China, said how to guarantee Internet development in a legal way is a major challenge, adding that the rule of law is the basis of online improvement, according to the report.

In recent years, apps on smartphones, which have become easy to obtain and can provide convenient services for users, have boomed, but many lack security, the report said.

Zhu Wei, an associate professor specializing in communications law at the China University of Political Science and Law, said it is time for the authority to make a rule covering such apps, in a bid to protect smartphone users' privacy and ensure the industry develops healthily, the report said.

"Some of the apps have loopholes. Their inventors or operators only care how to attract mobile phone users and rarely supervise the content of these products, which has brought negative effects to the public," the newspaper quoted Zhu as saying.

Zhu said some apps can steal users' personal information after they are downloaded to their mobile phones, while some inventors also lack copyright awareness, and infringe on others' intellectual property rights, according to the report.

He suggested limiting access to the apps, to bring order to the market, the report said.

Tong Liqiang, director of the authority's Beijing branch, said the capital has put making such a rule on its agenda and will establish a cyberspace law expert committee to mediate between websites and users, the report added.