Following the Chinese government’s decision to propose a virtual ID system, which is presented as a measure to protect personal information, many people fear that the plan may have the opposite effect, according to Voice of America (VOA).
Concern is rising among China’s more than one billion internet users regarding the proposal. China’s Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration issued the draft “Measures for the Administration of National Network Identity Authentication Public Services” on July 26.
According to the proposal, Chinese netizens would be able to apply for virtual IDs on a voluntary basis to “minimize the excessive collection and retention of citizens’ personal information by online platforms” and to “protect personal information.”
While many netizens agree that companies have too much access to their personal information, others fear that if implemented, the cyber ID proposal will simply allow the government to more easily track them and control what they can say online, as reported by VOA.
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Beijing lawyer Wang Cailiang said on Weibo, “My opinion is short: I am not in favor of this. Please leave a little room for citizens’ privacy.”
Shortly after the proposal was published, Tsinghua University law professor Lao Dongyan posted on her Weibo account, “The cyber IDs are like installing monitors to watch everyone’s online behavior.” Her post has since disappeared, along with many other negative comments, which can only be found on foreign social media platforms like X and Free Weibo, an anonymous and unblocked search engine established in 2012 to capture and save posts censored by China’s Sina Weibo or deleted by users, as reported by VOA.
A Weibo user under the name “Liu Jiming” said, “The authorities solemnly announced [the proposal] and solicited public opinions while blocking people from expressing their opinions. This clumsy show of democracy is really shocking.”
Beijing has a wide network of censors to block and remove politically sensitive content, known as the Great Firewall by critics. Since 2017, China has required internet service and content providers to verify users’ real names through national IDs, allowing authorities to more easily trace and track online activities and posts to the source.
According to Chinese internet experts, netizens can make that harder by using others’ accounts, providers, IDs, and names on various platforms. However, critics fear that a single cyber ID would close those gaps in the Great Firewall, VOA reported.
Zola, a network engineer and well-known citizen journalist originally from China’s Hunan province, who naturalized in Taiwan, said that controlling cyber IDs is a superpower because it provides access not only to a netizen’s actual name but also to the connection between the netizen and the cybersecurity ID. “The control of the cyber IDs is a superpower because you don’t only know a netizen’s actual name, but also the connection between the netizen and the cybersecurity ID,” Zola said.
Li, a Shanghai-based dissident who did not want to disclose his full name due to the sensitivity of the issue, told VOA that the level of surveillance by China’s internet police has long been beyond imagination. He said the new proposal is a way for authorities to signal that surveillance will be more overt, “just to intimidate and warn you to behave.”
Meanwhile, some netizens fear that China could soon change the cyber ID system from a voluntary program to a requirement for online access, as reported by VOA. A Weibo user under the name “Fang Zhifu” warned that in the future, if “the cyber ID is revoked, it will be like being sentenced to death in the cyber world.”
The Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration said they are soliciting public opinion on the cyber ID plan until August 25.
(INPUTS FROM ANI)
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