Published by ChinaMNC · Hejiang

China Website Identity Labels: What Foreign Founders Should Know About the Sichuan Government Portal's Certification Record

A practical look at China's website identity label (标识) system, using the Sichuan Provincial People's Government portal's published certification and evaluation data as a worked example for foreign founders operating company websites in China.

Why a Government Portal's Label Record Matters to Foreign Founders

Foreign founders setting up or running a company in China quickly discover that a corporate website is not just a marketing asset — it is a regulated interface with the public. One of the less-discussed compliance layers is the website identity label (标识), a certification mechanism administered at the national level. A recently published record for the Sichuan Provincial People's Government portal offers a clear, concrete example of how the system works in practice, and it is worth studying because the same structures apply to commercial sites.

The source page is a formal label management disclosure. It lists the operating institution, the certification bodies, validity windows, scheduled inspections, and performance evaluations. For a foreign founder, the value lies in seeing exactly what Chinese regulators measure and how often they re-check it.

The Institutional Baseline

The portal in question is operated by the General Office of the Sichuan Provincial People's Government, classified as a Party and government organ, and hosted at www.sc.gov.cn. Its electronic label number is DZJG20260100003479PW. These identifiers are not decorative: they tie a site to a verified operating entity, which is the core purpose of the label system.

For a foreign-invested company, the analogous step is ensuring your Chinese entity's registration details match what appears on your site. Mismatches between the registered entity and the published site operator are a common source of friction during review.

Who Administers the Label

Two bodies are named. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) is the supervising authority, and the Internet Society of China is the issuing body. This split matters practically: policy and oversight sit with the ministry, while issuance and record-keeping sit with the industry association.

Founders should note that this is a separate track from ICP filing. A site can be ICP-filed and still need to address label certification depending on its nature and audience.

Validity Periods and the Two-Year Cycle

Both the PC website label and the WAP (mobile) website label carry a two-year validity period, running from 27 January 2026 to 26 January 2028. The certificate authentication follows the same window.

The lesson for foreign founders is to build renewal into planning. A two-year cycle means the certification is not a one-time setup task; it recurs, and lapses can affect how the site is treated. Treat the expiry date as a compliance calendar item alongside your annual reporting obligations.

Scheduled Inspections

The record lists periodic inspections on 26 July 2026, 26 January 2027, and 26 July 2027, each with a result of "passed." The cadence is roughly every six months.

This tells you the label is actively monitored rather than granted and forgotten. For commercial operators, the implication is that site content, accessibility features, and technical stability should be maintained continuously, not just at application time. A site that degrades between reviews risks a failed inspection.

How Performance Is Scored

The evaluation framework is unusually transparent and is worth understanding even if your site is commercial rather than governmental. Scores are broken into categories, each with three inputs: self-assessment, institutional assessment, and user assessment.

PC Website Results

• Elderly-friendly (适老化) evaluation: self-assessment 100, institutional assessment 82, user assessment 83.
• Accessibility (无障碍) evaluation: self-assessment 100, institutional assessment 83, user assessment 83.
• Efficacy index: completeness 100%, reliability 100%, robustness 100%.
• Overall score: 86.2.

WAP Website Results

• Elderly-friendly evaluation: self-assessment 100, institutional assessment 82, user assessment 81.
• Accessibility evaluation: self-assessment 100, institutional assessment 80, user assessment 82.
• Efficacy index: completeness 100%, reliability 100%, robustness 100%.
• Overall score: 85.4.

Two patterns stand out. First, self-assessment scores are consistently perfect while external assessments are lower — a reminder that self-reported compliance is treated as a starting point, not a conclusion. Second, mobile scores trail desktop slightly, which is common and worth watching given how much traffic in China is mobile.

Practical Takeaways for Foreign Founders

• Verify your operator identity. Ensure the entity named on your site matches your registered Chinese company and any label record.
• Plan for a two-year certification cycle. Diarise expiry and renewal well ahead of the deadline.
• Expect periodic review. Maintain accessibility and elderly-friendly features continuously rather than retrofitting before inspection.
• Treat accessibility as a scored requirement. The framework explicitly measures elderly-friendly and accessibility performance separately for PC and mobile.
• Do not rely on self-assessment alone. External and user evaluations carry weight in the final score.
• Keep technical stability high. Completeness, reliability, and robustness are tracked as a distinct efficacy index.

Reading the Record Correctly

The published page also references a downloadable stamped evaluation report on elderly-friendly and accessibility testing for the Sichuan portal. The existence of a formal, stamped report is itself informative: documentation is expected, and it is retained.

Foreign founders should avoid over-reading this example. It concerns a government portal, not a private company, and the specific scores are not benchmarks you are required to hit. What transfers is the structure: verified identity, fixed validity terms, scheduled inspections, and multi-source scoring across accessibility, elderly-friendliness, and technical efficacy.

This summary is based on information published by the relevant Chinese government website and is general information, not legal or tax advice.