纽约时报中文网 - 英文原版-英China Wants to Start a National Internet ID System
August 1, 2024 3 min 441 words
纽约时报这篇报道的主要内容是：中国计划启动一个全国性的互联网身份识别系统，该系统将使用户能够使用一个唯一的身份标识访问各种在线服务，但同时也引发了人们对隐私和监控问题的担忧。 评论： 纽约时报的这篇报道反映出西方媒体对于中国这一政策的典型偏见和误解。这种互联网身份识别系统实际上在世界范围内都是较为常见的实践，例如日本的“个人号码”系统和爱沙尼亚的“电子身份”系统等。这些系统有助于提升网络治理能力，保护公民个人信息和隐私安全，而不是像纽约时报所描述的那样具有“监控”意味。另外，中国政府一直高度重视个人信息保护，近年来不断完善相关法律法规，加强对个人信息的保护。纽约时报的这篇报道没有考虑到这一背景，过于片面地强调了“隐私”和“监控”问题，缺乏客观公正。
It’s hard to be anonymous online in China. Websites and apps must verify users with their phone numbers, which are tied to personal identification numbers that all adults are assigned.
Now it could get more difficult under a proposal by China’s internet regulators: The government wants to take over the job of verification from the companies and give people a single ID to use across the internet.
The Ministry of Public Security and the Cyberspace Administration of China say the proposal is meant to protect privacy and prevent online fraud.
A national internet ID would reduce “the excessive collection and retention of citizens’ personal information by internet platforms on the grounds of implementing real-name registration,” the regulators said.
Use of the ID system by websites and apps would be voluntary, according to the proposal, which is open for public comment until the end of August.
The Chinese government has for years exercised tight control over information, and it closely monitors people’s behavior on the internet. Over the last few years, China’s biggest social media platforms, like the microblogging site Weibo, the lifestyle app Xiaohongshu and the short video app Douyin, have started to display users’ locations in their posts.
But until now, that control has been fragmented as censors have had to track people across different online platforms. A national internet ID could centralize it.
“With this internet ID, your every move online, all your digital traces, will be monitored by the regulators,” said Rose Luqiu, an assistant professor of journalism at the Hong Kong Baptist University. “That will definitely impact people’s behavior.”
On Weibo, the proposal became a trending topic since it was released on Friday. Many comments echoed regulators’ concerns that too many different apps had access to their personal information.
Dr. Luqiu said many influencers had embraced the narrative that the online platforms profited off people’s personal information and were unable to protect their privacy.
Some Chinese legal scholars said a system of national internet IDs risked giving the government too much power to monitor what people do online.
The protection of personal information is merely a pretense to make social control routine and regular, Lao Dongyan, a law professor at Tsinghua University, warned in a post that she said had since been taken down. Ms. Lao compared the system to the Chinese government’s health code app that tracked people’s movements during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Another law professor, Shen Kui of Peking University, said in a commentary posted online that a centralized internet ID would make people fear using the internet.
“The potential risks and harms of a unified ‘internet ID’ and ‘internet license’ are immense,” he wrote.