Personal Information Protection Law also applies to local governments

IN A DOCUMENT it released late last month, the State Council, China's Cabinet, urged governments of all levels to strengthen their protection of personal information. Beijing Youth Daily comments on Monday:

Quite a few local governments take it for granted that the personal information of people who receive poverty alleviation money, government subsistence allowances and public subsidized houses, which include their name, home address, identity card number and telephone number, should be disclosed to social scrutiny to prevent the unqualified people from falsely claiming welfare benefits.

Although this utterly transparent practice has effectively avoided the misuse of public resources as intended, it has flouted the Personal Information Protection Law by throwing the disadvantaged recipients into the spotlight.