The Evolution of Data Protection Laws in China, Japan, and Korea

This book offers a comparative legal analysis of data protection frameworks in three of Asia’s most influential jurisdictions: China, Japan, and South Korea. As data privacy becomes a universal legal concern, regional approaches remain deeply shaped by divergent legal traditions, economic strategies, and governance philosophies. This volume examines how each country balances the competing interests of individual privacy, economic innovation, and public security in crafting and enforcing data protection laws. Focusing on four major themes—(1) General Frameworks, (2) Biometric Data, (3) Artificial Intelligence, and (4) Cross-Border Data Transfers—the book explores how these countries address some of the most pressing and complex challenges in contemporary data protection law. Each chapter is written by legal scholars or practitioners with deep regional knowledge and comparative perspectives, offering both doctrinal analysis and practical insights drawn from real-world regulatory and litigation contexts. Chapter 5 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.