The State Council is pushing banks and e-commerce companies to better protect people’s personal information by providing them with guidelines. Further, the State Council will help fund new security technologies that promote the development of digital signatures that could replace simple client-selected passwords. Banks and e-commerce companies are supposed to use people’s passwords to protect their information, but passwords are not always the most effective way to protect one’s privacy. “Regulations and laws on personal information protection are urgently needed, as leaking personal information has seriously affected the security of all citizens,” said Lü Benfu, vice dean of the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an expert in information security. The seventh Amendment to the Criminal Law regulates that “whoever illegally obtains the aforesaid information by stealing or any other means shall, if the circumstances are serious, be punished.” However, no specific definition of the leakage of personal information is stipulated.
