Kaiyan Xiao

There are limited rights to privacy in the Chinese Constitution. Article 37 in Chinese Constitution provides that the ìfreedom of the person of citizens of the People's Republic of China is inviolable,î and Article 40 states: law protects Freedom and privacy of correspondence of citizens of the People's Republic of China. No organization or individual may, on any ground, infringe on citizens' freedom of privacy of correspondence, except in cases where to meet the needs of state security or of criminal investigation, public security or prosecutorial organs are permitted to censor correspondence in accordance with procedures prescribed by law.î

There is no general data protection law in China and few laws that limit government interference with privacy. Concerns with the growing use of the Internet have led to technical and legal restrictions. With the assistance of American companies such as Bay Networks, China has developed a ìGreat Firewallî which limits traffic to the Internet outside China to only three gateways. The firewall also blocks some western news web sites such as the BBC, New York Times and the Voice of America. In February 1999, the government announced the creation of the State Information Security Appraisal and Identification Management Committee which according to the official Xinhua state news agency ìwill be responsible for protecting government and commercial confidential files on the Internet, identifying any net user, and defining rights and responsibilities... The move is intended to guard both individual and government users, protect information by monitoring and keep them from being used without proper authorization.î

Under Article 7 of the Computer Information Network and Internet Security, Protection and Management Regulations ìthe freedom and privacy of network users is protected by law. No unit or individual may, in violation of these regulations, use the Internet to violate the freedom and privacy of network users.î Article 8 states that ìunits and individuals engaged in Internet business must accept the security supervision, inspection, and guidance of the public security organization. This includes providing to the public security organization information, materials and digital document, and assisting the public security organization to discover and properly handle incidents involving law violations and criminal activities involving computer information networks.î Articles 10 and 13 stipulate that Internet account holders must be registered with the public security organization and lending or transferring of accounts is strictly prohibited. Sections 285 to 287 of the Criminal Code prohibit intrusions into computer systems and punish violations of the regulations. (http://www.privacyinternational.org/survey/)

The Chinese government will respect the people's privacy as long as they obey the law. If the government suspects someone of violating the law or becoming a threat to the communist party, then generally privacy will be taken away from the individual.

Privacy is not a real concern for people in China. People would like to have more privacy, but due the current limitations, people generally accept the government's decisions over the privacy issue.

In this situation, the Chinese government would search Mr. John W's home and look for the evidence of child pornography. The government would disregard John W's privacy in this case.