China News Service, Jinan, September 16 (Reporter Liu Yue) Have you ever sold your old mobile phone or computer?
With the rapid development of the digital economy and the rapid iteration of electronic products, selling "second-hand goods" has long become the norm for the public. But many people have always been worried: Can simply restoring factory settings really completely clear personal privacy and prevent data leakage?
It is true that the electronic product recycling industry has long had a major pain point: the "factory reset" commonly used by ordinary users can only delete the data index, while the original data remains in the device storage medium and is easily restored through professional technical means. The risk of leakage of address books, photos, payment records, private information, etc. remains high, seriously infringing on personal information security and social public interests. In order to implement the national policy requirements on equipment renewal and trade-in, and to fill the gaps in industry technical specifications, an exclusive mandatory national standard for information removal came into being.
On December 2, 2025, the GB 46864 "Data Security Technology - Electronic Product Information Clearance Technical Requirements" mandatory national standard proposed and managed by the Central Cyberspace Administration was officially approved and released, and will be fully implemented on January 1, 2027. As the first mandatory national standard in the field of data security in my country, the new regulations will build a strong defense line for privacy security in the two major aspects of equipment production and recycling and circulation, completely rewrite the security rules for second-hand electronic product transactions, and clear the barriers to privacy trust for the hundreds of billions-level second-hand electronic recycling market.
On September 15, the Electronic Product Information Clearance Sub-forum of the 2026 National Cyber Security Publicity Week was held in Jinan, Shandong. Experts and business representatives from various parties gathered together to conduct in-depth discussions on core issues such as the implementation and supervision of strong standards for electronic product information erasure. They also released three standard practice guidelines, including the Electronic Product Information Erasure Industry Initiative and Public Service Platform, as well as the "Technical Guidelines for Block Erasure of Semiconductor Storage Media", which built industry consensus for the implementation of GB 46864-2025.
“The core of this mandatory national standard is to respond to the privacy concerns of consumers selling unused electronic products, and at the same time to promote the high-quality development of the circular economy.”
He Yanzhe, deputy director of the Evaluation Laboratory of the Cybersecurity Center of the China Electronics Technology Standardization Institute and an expert in the formulation and promotion of GB 46864 strong standards, told China News Network that in the past, the public did not dare to sell old equipment at will, and a large number of electronic products were left idle and accumulated dust. The core problem was that there was no unified standard for data removal and no guarantee of privacy security. The implementation of the new national standard is to break through the blocking points in the recycling of idle resources, "not only comprehensively protect the privacy rights of ordinary people, but also promote the conversion of idle electronic products into renewable resources, and achieve two-way empowerment of security and development."
He Yanzhe introduced that unlike previous industry recommended specifications, this time the national standard is a legally binding and mandatory requirement. The core breakthrough is to force all electronic product manufacturers to upgrade their underlying functions and put an end to the "pseudo-clearance" chaos.
"The new standards clearly stipulate that all electronic product manufacturers must develop and design a 'one-click clear' function, or provide clearing tools or free services. Before selling the device, users only need to trigger this function and confirm the risk warning to completely clear all data generated during the entire use of the device."
In response to the question of "whether the erasure is complete and whether it can be restored" that the public is most concerned about, he dissected the core technical logic in detail: there are obvious loopholes in the traditional factory reset, and the national standard exclusive one-click erasure function will completely overwrite the original storage content of the device through random numbers, zeros, one and other data, completely erasing the original data traces from a technical level.
"Judging from the laboratory verification results, this erasure technology has almost reached the level of being completely unrecoverable." He Yanzhe explained that incomplete erasure will occur only in very rare special circumstances such as abnormal function operation, and the device comes with an intelligent reminder mechanism for erasure failure. Once the erasure is not in place, the user will be notified in a timely manner to avoid residual privacy risks from the source.
At the same time, He Yanzhe specifically reminded users that this function is irreversible. "One-click clearing will completely destroy all data and cannot be retrieved. Everyone must back up important data in advance and operate with caution."
According to the new regulations, January 1, 2027 is the final enforcement node. Since then, all newly launched mobile phones, tablets, smart watches, smart glasses, computers, servers, printers and other electronic products must be pre-installed with one-click cleaning functions that meet national standards, or provide cleaning tools and free cleaning services. Regulatory authorities will conduct regular inspections and inspections to consolidate manufacturers' compliance responsibilities. So far, leading manufacturers have taken the lead in implementing the new regulatory requirements.
At the same time, for existing old equipment that was launched before 2027 and old electronic products that do not have the national standard one-click clearing function, the new regulations also establish a complete security system and build a double safety lock of "user self-cleaning + recycling security".
"New phones rely on their own functions to self-clean, and old phones rely on formal recycling. Double protection prevents privacy leaks." He Yanzhe told reporters that the national standard specifically adds mandatory regulations for recycling links, clarifying that all second-hand electronic product recycling companies must have standardized information removal capabilities.
He said that if the existing old equipment cannot completely clear the data through software, the recycling company is strictly prohibited from directly selling it for a second time. The equipment must be physically crushed, incinerated, etc., and the residual data must be completely cleared before resource recycling. At present, a number of standardized recycling points that have undergone capability verification have been established across the country, and pilot services have also been launched in Jinan. Ordinary users can go there to experience compliant data removal and recycling services.
Not only that, mainstream recycling platforms have taken the lead in completing compliance upgrades. At present, head recycling platforms such as Aihuishou, Zhuanzhuan, and China-funded Huan Electronics have completed the transformation of their management systems and cleaning technologies, and have national-standard information cleaning capabilities. Follow-up related capabilities will be fully empowered by hundreds of thousands of offline recycling outlets across the country. By the time the new regulations are officially implemented in 2027, all mainstream shopping malls and street compliance recycling points will implement the new standards to achieve full coverage and standardized services.
In order to facilitate ordinary users to quickly identify compliance functions and formal channels, the new regulations are equipped with a visual identification system. In the future, equipment cleaning functions and compliant recycling outlets that comply with the GB 46864 national standard will also be promoted by marking exclusive information cleaning logos. Users can operate and deliver with confidence after seeing the logo.
The full implementation of the mandatory national standard GB 46864 will effectively solve the problem of "irregular data erasure and unprotected privacy" in the recycling process of electronic products. Through the full-chain control of "mandatory empowerment on the production side and strict protection on the circulation side", it can not only effectively protect the personal information security of hundreds of millions of users, but also reshape the trust system for second-hand electronic product transactions, activate the vitality of idle resource recycling, and promote the two-way high-quality development of my country's digital security and green circular economy.
