China on Friday published draft guidance to regulate the export of data generated by cars in the country, providing a potential roadmap for companies such as Tesla (TSLA.O) that have been keen to do so.
The industry ministry detailed different scenarios where it may or may not require security assessments for companies seeking to transfer data abroad.
For example, it said data collected in China for training and developing autonomous driving or advanced driving assistance systems was categorised as 'important' data that would require approvals for outbound transfers, according to the drafted rules that are open to public comment until July 13.
It granted some exemptions, for instance to data processing companies registered in the country's free trade zones, saying that they would not require approval to transfer abroad any data that had not been classified as restricted by the free trade zone.
Tesla has been seeking approval from Chinese regulators to transfer data collected from its fleet of more than 2 million EVs in China, currently saved locally in Shanghai, back to the United States for training its autonomous driving algorithms.
The U.S. also does not allow Tesla to train its AI software in China, a situation chief executive Elon Musk has described as a "quandary", which undermines the performance of its Full Self-Driving software on Chinese roads.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment on the drafted rules.
