China Consumers Association released the annual report on consumer protection in 2022： four problems, such as vulgarization of online games and the construction of old age, are still outstanding.

Cctv newsAccording to the website of China Consumers Association, on May 16th, China Consumers Association released the Annual Report on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests in China (2022) (hereinafter referred to as the Annual Report).

　　The Annual Report comprehensively summarizes the remarkable achievements made in the legislative, administrative, judicial and social aspects of China’s consumer rights protection in 2022. The "Annual Report" pointed out that under the guidance of the policy objectives of the Party and the state, in 2022, the protection of consumers’ rights and interests focused on promoting consumption equity and serving high-quality development, meeting the new challenges brought by intelligent, digital and shared consumption, and made remarkable progress in promoting the protection of "one old and one small" consumer rights and interests, consolidating the foundation of consumption quality and safety, and promoting green and low-carbon development.

　　The "Annual Report" shows that in 2022, the protection of the rights and interests of elderly and underage consumers has been strengthened, and consumer fairness has been promoted on a larger scale. Government departments at all levels focus on special actions such as strengthening the protection of the rights and interests of vulnerable consumer groups such as the elderly and minors, cracking down on telecom fraud, and maintaining fair competition market order, accelerate the transformation of aging, and vigorously safeguard and promote consumer fairness. By September 23, 2022, the national special campaign to crack down on and rectify pension fraud had recovered a total of 30.80 billion yuan, and the rectification rate of hidden dangers related to fraud reached 96.7%, and the people’s satisfaction with the special campaign reached 86.0%. "Renovation of the Internet Environment for Minors in the Summer of 2022" focuses on solving the chaos of minors’ consumption, which is strongly reflected by the people. The special treatment of bottomless marketing of food for minors effectively controls the bottomless marketing of pornographic and vulgar food for minors around the campus and online platforms, and effectively protects the legitimate rights and interests and physical and mental health of underage consumer groups. At the same time, the judicial organs have increased the protection of vulnerable consumer groups. In 2022, the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate released several typical cases of judicial protection of the rights and interests of the elderly. Procuratorial organs throughout the country approved the arrest of 7,594 people and prosecuted 8,516 people. In the first instance of the year, the national court system sentenced 1,645 criminal cases of pension fraud with 4,523 people, and the property of pension fraud cases was 3 billion yuan.Let more elderly consumers feel the judicial justice and show the fairness and justice under the value concept of consumer rights protection. China Consumers Association released a special report on consumer complaints on issues such as "one old and one young", launched a series of activities of "preventing and controlling myopia among teenagers", and organized a large-scale public welfare activity of "optimizing consumer experience and promoting consumer fairness together" to promote the whole society to promote consumer fairness together. In 2022, the National Consumers Association accepted 1.152 million consumer complaints, an increase of 5.7% over the previous year, and solved 915,752 complaints, with a complaint resolution rate of 79.5%, saving consumers 1.38 billion yuan in economic losses.

　　According to the Annual Report, in 2022, new progress has been made in the protection of consumers’ rights and interests in the fields of green, low carbon, quality and safety in China, and green consumption has been promoted from conceptual principles to specific systems and implementation rules. Normative documents such as the Measures for the Administration of Green Food Labels were issued, which further refined and improved the green consumption system; Some local governments have taken various measures such as issuing green vouchers to promote the implementation of green consumption; China Consumers Association, together with local consumer associations, vigorously carried out work to stop food and beverage waste, oppose over-packaging, advocate green consumption, and guide consumers to consume green and low carbon. Government departments have further promoted consumer safety supervision in the field of people’s livelihood. In 2022, the General Administration of Market Supervision launched the "Iron Fist" campaign to strengthen the investigation and comprehensive rectification of cases in the people’s livelihood, and investigated and dealt with 206,000 illegal cases in the people’s livelihood; We organized special actions such as enforcement of intellectual property rights to further strengthen the governance of key areas, key commodities and key markets. In the whole year, we investigated and dealt with about 560,000 related cases, and carried out about 50,000 enforcement actions against key entity markets with high incidence of infringement and counterfeiting. The Office of the National Leading Group for Combating Infringement and Counterfeiting organized the nationwide unified destruction of infringing, counterfeit and shoddy goods in 2022, destroying more than 3,000 tons of infringing, counterfeit and shoddy goods. Network information departments at all levels, industry and information departments, public security organs, etc. have strengthened the governance of violations of consumers’ personal information rights and interests, investigated and dealt with 135 illegal and illegal apps, and investigated and dealt with more than 25,000 illegal websites and apps according to law.464,000 cases of telecommunication network fraud were cracked. People’s courts, people’s procuratorates and public security organs at all levels strictly implement the "four strictest" requirements and severely punish crimes that endanger food and drug safety according to law. Eleven departments, including the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, jointly launched a special campaign to deal with outstanding problems in the medical beauty industry, and the Ministry of Public Security deployed a special campaign to severely crack down on the crime of manufacturing and selling counterfeit and inferior drugs according to law, creating a good atmosphere for maintaining drug safety. China Consumers Association organized the popularization of the Personal Information Protection Law, conducted investigation and supervision on food safety, issued tips on children’s cosmetics consumption safety and medical beauty consumption, and continued to pay attention to people’s consumption safety.

　　The "Annual Report" pointed out that there are still four outstanding problems in the protection of consumers’ rights and interests in China. First, the phenomenon of underage internet addiction and vulgarization of online games needs to be rectified. Online games and some learning apps are pre-installed with gamification, commercialization and eroticism of children’s intelligent applications. Some learning apps have the problems of less learning functions, more leisure functions and more induced marketing, which affects the physical and mental health of underage consumers. Second, the consumer infrastructure is aging and barrier-free construction needs to be accelerated. Older consumers have difficulties in applying technology in traditional consumption fields such as travel and communication. The new consumption infrastructure with data as the core needs to fully consider the actual needs of the elderly and accelerate the aging and barrier-free transformation. Third, the short-board problem of rural consumption fairness affects the further expansion of consumption. The level of rural consumption infrastructure construction and public service supply is relatively low, and the logistics system obviously has problems such as low efficiency, poor service and high cost. Fourth, the governance of the live e-commerce platform still needs to be increased. Some live broadcast platforms fail to fulfill their censorship obligations and management responsibilities. Some operators induce consumers to "trade privately" with them. Some products are shoddy, fake ones are genuine, and others spread vulgar values.

　　The Central Economic Work Conference requires that the recovery and expansion of consumption should be given priority in 2023. To this end, the "Annual Report" puts forward suggestions for the protection of consumer rights and interests in 2023: First, accelerate the revision of consumer rights protection regulations and related legal systems in the field of e-commerce, and constantly improve the legal system of consumer rights protection. Second, actively adapt to the new task of restoring and expanding consumption. On the basis of doing a good job in ensuring quality and safety in key areas of people’s livelihood consumption, we will take various measures to boost consumer confidence and enhance people’s willingness to consume. The third is to intensify the crackdown on false propaganda, counterfeiting, price fraud and other acts that infringe on consumers’ legitimate rights and interests, and continue to optimize the consumption environment so that consumers can obtain strong willingness to spend. The fourth is to strengthen the supply of substantive policies and measures to stabilize consumption, and comprehensively implement policies in employment and income distribution, consumption infrastructure construction, social basic security, etc., and continuously improve the consumption power of the people.