China's cyber regulator says all mainland internet users must register real personal details
Amid fears for free speech, just how the use of real names will be enforced remains unclear
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 04 February, 2015, 9:58am
UPDATED : Thursday, 05 February, 2015, 2:20am
Mimi Lau and Laura Zhou
China has the world's largest internet population, with up to 649 million people on the mainland accessing the internet up to the end of last year. Photo: EPA
The mainland's 649 million internet users will be required to register their real identities under new rules imposed by the cyber regulator yesterday as the nation continues to tighten its grip on free speech.
The new regulation, expected to come into effect next month, will require internet users to submit identity details to website administrators for all online accounts, including blogs, instant messaging platforms, Twitter-like microblogs and forums.
People can still choose an alias and profile pictures, but they must register their real names with web administrators, Xu Feng , chief of the mainland's top internet watchdog, told mainland media yesterday.
But aliases or pictures considered inappropriate, misrepre-sentative or a threat to national security will be banned. This will put an end to people using the names of foreign leaders such as "Putin" or "Obama" as their online identities.
The regulator did not elaborate on how the measure would be implemented or whether it would be retrospective.
China has the world's largest internet population, recently reaching 649 million, the China Internet Network Information Centre said this week. Of that number, 557 million or 85 per cent access the internet via a mobile phone.
Xu said the new measures would help eliminate untrustworthy, incorrect or misleading information.
The regulation states that user names must not contain information that breaches the nation's laws and constitution, threatens national security, leaks state secrets, damages the public interest and religious policies or incites ethnic disputes. User names that incited social instability, defamed others or were related to pornography, gambling, violence or terrorism, would also be banned.
The mainland launched a review of real-name registration for instant messaging services late last year, Xu said. More than 80 per cent of users of Wechat, the mainland's most popular messaging service, had since registered their real identity information, The Beijing News reported.
The latest move concerned some activists.
"It is unclear how they will implement the policy, possibly by using registered mobile phone numbers or identity cards," human rights blogger Mo Zhixu said.
"But [under the policy] activists may find it difficult to make critical comments on the internet. It is more likely to lead to self-censorship on the internet."
Meanwhile, the Supreme People's Court handed down an interpretation guideline yesterday allowing online chat records, blogs, microblogs, mobile messages and any other digital information to be included as evidence during civil trials, China News Service reported.
Digital records have been included as evidence for criminal cases for some years.
"Allowing digital records to be included as court evidence could help identify the truth," Beijing lawyer Liu Zilong said.
"But there still needs to be certification measures in place to verify the legitimacy of the information."
