By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-03-13 07:23

A colleague of mine returned home last Thursday from a four-day trip overseas. He turned on his cell phone when the passengers were told to get ready to disembark.

Before he could even make a call home, his cell phone was jammed with about 80 messages. More than half of them junk, from people or small firms selling apartments at "best prices", private lessons to help his children get into college, and other services.

All of us who frequently receive these messages have stopped asking how salespeople get hold of our cell phone numbers.

Worse than spam messages are calls from salespeople who seem to know more about us than just our phone numbers. Many who receive calls discover the callers at the other end not only know their names, but also where they live and what brand of cars they have.

The insurance salespeople even know when private car-owners need to renew their insurances. Another colleague of mine said he received about 30 calls from different agents a month before it was time to renew his insurance.

It is now a matter of fact that there is rampant abuse of private personal information, especially in urban centers. You are at risk when supplying personal information in a job application, buying a car, a house or insurance. Even when signing for memberships to clubs, discounts or investing in the stock market.

As Li Mingrong, deputy procurator-general of Fujian province and a deputy to the 11th National People's Congress, lamented during the current session, "there is little one can do to prevent personal information from being released".

A TV reporter bought a disk containing information about owners of certain brands of cars and made phone calls, only to discover that the information was shockingly accurate.

While personal information is being sold on the streets and abused, government agencies or State financial institutions are doing very little to make use of this information to deliver better services or establish a credit system for the good of the society.

For instance, the taxation bureaus are still unable to levy differentiated taxes for people with or without children or other dependents. One official even claimed recently that it was very difficult for them to do so.

But I believe the difficulty really lies with the poor coordination and cooperation among related government departments as well as State financial institutions as their turfs seem to override the interests of the public.

Meanwhile, the importance of protecting the privacy of individuals has not gained due attention, either from the legislature or the government. Bills proposing to create a law on the protection of citizens' private information were first put forward two years ago, but so far the public has heard little about how they have fared beyond the deliberation stage.

It is encouraging that more NPC deputies are joining together in pushing for such legislation during the ongoing NPC session.

In his proposal, Li listed eight motions for consideration. Of those, I believe the most important one is to speed up the process to place an individual's private information under legal protection.

The law should also force businesses to guard an individual's private information and not divulge or spread it to outsiders. Legal action should be instituted if they do so.

Meanwhile, related government agencies should loosen the grip on their turfs, compare notes and establish a mechanism to make better use of this swelling information. It is their responsibility to serve the good of the people, and not shirk away from it.

E-mail: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/13/2008 page9)