Selling or illegally disclosing people's personal information may soon carry a criminal penalty, according to the draft amendment of the Criminal Law that began making its way through the top legislature on Monday.

If passed, staff with access to personal information, such as those working at government offices, financial, medical and educational institutions and transport, and communications departments, who are found to have sold or leaked it could face up to three years in jail.

People that illegally obtain personal information also incur criminal penalties, under the draft submitted Monday to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC).

Personal reputation and privacy are protected under the general provisions of China's civil law, but personal information, especially mobile phone numbers and consumption records, are often leaked, which is why citizens so often receive anonymous ad text messages on their mobile phones.

Huang Taiyun, director of the criminal law division of NPC Standing Committee's legislative affairs commission, said leaked information threatened citizens' personal and material safety as well as infringing on their privacy.

More than 90 percent of Chinese worry that their private details are too easily divulged and misused, according to a national survey by China Youth Daily last December, in which 74 percent of 4,003 respondents said there should be tougher laws on privacy infringement.

Ma Huaide, vice president of the Chinese University of Political Science and Law and of the Administrative Law Association, applauded the new amendments and called for the formulation of a special law on personal information protection.

"Government agencies have the greatest access to citizens' private information and should be held responsible for its confidentiality," Ma told China Daily.

But there is still a long way to go before the country formulates laws that prohibit companies and organizations from leaking citizen's personal information.

"The law has not been put on the legislation plan this year," Yang Kui, a State Council legislative department official, said Monday.

Mo Yuchuan, director of the Research Center for Constitutional and Administrative Law of Renmin University of China, said: "It will be an important law, but defining personal information and to what degree it should be protected as well as utilized has yet to be discussed."

The law must also specify the person responsible for overseeing protection and use of information, he said.

"As formulating such a law will be very complicated, advance inclusion of relevant articles within the Criminal Law in advance is a significant step," Mo said.

(China Daily August 26, 2008)