Law urged to protect personal data

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress will review a draft on protecting online information on December 24th.

Information-related crimes, such as fraud, In less than two weeks, many students in China will take entrance exams for postgraduate studies, a stressful time seen by many students as the "last minute fight." But as if that wasn't enough pressure, they have now found themselves the target of some unexpected harassment.

For students who are busy preparing for the postgraduate exam earlier next year may fell a bit exposed these days. They complain there has been a constant stream of texts and junk calls every day.

Student, Beijing, said, "I received loads of junk calls which try to persuade me to attend training classes. Most of my classmates have had the same."

One thing that bothers the students is that the spam texts are very specific. Spammers know their names, even what kind of exams they're going to take.

Student, Beijing, said, "I'm confused how they got my name, they hang up the phone every time I try to ask them how. It's annoying and an invasion of privacy."

It's not uncommon now to find online advertisements which trade personal information.

Sellers use various online tools such as instant messages to sell private data, which are usually collected from online registration accounts of internet users.

Gao Zhiyang, Vice Director, China Software Testing Center, said, "My suggestion is that you should pay attention to every form that requires you to fill out personal information. And you should delete the information you post on websites once there is no need in use it."

China has the world's biggest online population, with over 500 million by June of this year. And the public is increasingly demanding specific laws to protect online private data.