Blogger’s Note: Australia recently introduced a ban on internet usage for under-16s – at the time this was erroneously presented as a “blanket-ban” – something I would not support on the grounds such a ban would be cruel to our youth. However, since then, I have been informed the ban is not “blanket” – but rather involves 16 social media sites that are designed for use by adults only. As under-16s should not be on these sites – would a ban matter? The point is that (far-right) White nationalists use adult social media sites to entrap and groom young people – and initiate these unsuspecting minors into Neo-Nazi and neo-fascist propaganda. By banning minors from these adult sites would remove a possible source of recruitment for the far-right. Just as long as our youth is able to still use the net in an appropriate manner – than curbs might not be a bad thing. Even in Socialist China the threat from online criminality – sometimes from outside of China – has been dealt a blow. Twenty-five to thirty years ago – the internet was a free space for sharing – today it has been fully colonised by the capitalists and this has brought an entirely new raft of problems (anarchism was the only problem in 2000 – but that was generally free). Last Thursday – around 200 teenage school-children in Sutton had some kind of tiktok event in Sutton town centre – which initiated a police response and some violence. ACW (25.1.2026)
China Daily 2026-01-24
China’s prosecuting authorities have stepped up efforts to protect personal data, prosecuting more than 5,400 people and filing 4,086 public interest litigation cases involving personal information infringement in the first 11 months of 2025, according to data recently released by the country’s top procuratorate.
The crackdown is part of broader efforts to strengthen personal information protection since the Personal Information Protection Law took effect on Nov 1, 2021. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate said it has guided procuratorial organs nationwide to take proactive action, deepen comprehensive cybersecurity governance and expand the role of public interest litigation in internet regulation.
To address key risk scenarios and refine regulatory oversight, the SPP on Thursday released a batch of relevant cases involving high-priority focus areas such as smart parking systems, facial recognition in residential communities, fraudulent online recruitment, doxing, leaks of personal data belonging to the deceased and their relatives, and misuse of such information by scalpers and travel agencies.
One of the cases involved medical and emergency personnel in Shanghai’s Minhang district, who exploited their positions to sell sensitive personal data for profit between July 2021 and March 2025. Doctors from local hospitals and emergency workers from the district’s emergency centre accessed more than 800 sets of personal information related to the deceased and their families through the municipal disease control information system or in-vehicle ambulance displays.
The leaked data included addresses, times and causes of death, as well as relatives’ names and contact details. The information was sold to funeral service practitioners, who used it for targeted commercial marketing, severely violating the privacy and emotional well-being of bereaved families and harming the public interest.
After discovering clues to the misconduct, the Minhang district people’s procuratorate launched a preliminary investigation and formally filed the case on July 11, 2025. Through interrogations of medical personnel, prosecutors identified the methods, scale and profits of the illegal data trade, as well as how the buyers misused the information.
On-site inspections exposed major loopholes in information security protocols. Hospital doctors were able to use shared keys to log into the disease control system and access death reports from across the city, while emergency workers could directly retrieve relatives’ contact information from ambulance work displays. The district emergency centre also failed to implement effective follow-up measures to prevent data leaks.
In response, the procuratorate issued a procuratorial recommendation to the district health commission on July 31, urging legal penalties for those involved, tighter day-to-day supervision and improvements to management systems.
The health commission moved quickly and established a special task force to investigate and rectify the problems. Administrative penalties were imposed on the hospital involved. Doctors received warnings, fines and suspensions of their practice rights, while emergency workers involved had their outsourced labor contracts terminated.
Additional safeguards were introduced with higher-level approval, including tighter access controls for the disease control information system and the removal of nonessential personal data from ambulance displays. The commission also instructed relevant units to upgrade information security and death certificate management systems, carry out mandatory staff training and establish a traceable follow-up inspection mechanism.
An official from the SPP’s public interest litigation department said “justiciability” remains the core principle in handling personal information protection cases, ensuring targeted and standardized law enforcement.
By resolving “small yet pivotal” cases in high-risk scenarios, procuratorial authorities aim to carry out an intensive campaign against prominent personal information protection problems, the official said.
The official added that the SPP will further strengthen coordination with relevant authorities, improve cross-regional cooperation mechanisms and advance comprehensive governance and supervision. Building specialized, interdisciplinary case-handling teams, encouraging public participation, applying technological tools and improving the legal framework for personal information protection were also listed as key priorities.
Editor: Mo Honge
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 