Beijing. December 22. INTERFAX-CHINA - China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) plans to work with the Ministry of Public Security, the State Council Information Office and other government departments to formulate a real name registration policy for mobile phone users by the end of 2010, an MIIT official told Interfax on Dec. 22.

Liu Jiang, an official in the MIIT's technology department, said that in order to purge pornographic content from mobile phones, the MIIT plans to draft a new regulation, which will require mobile phone users to register their real names with their numbers.

The MIIT recently issued a report in regard to the campaign against pornographic content on mobile phones, which included the MIIT's real name registration proposal, to provincial telecom administration bureaus, telecom operators and value-added service providers, he added.
However, Liu said that there will be two major obstacles to putting the real name registration policy into practice. Firstly, China currently already has nearly 200 million unregistered mobile phone users, accounting for nearly 30 percent of the country's total 679 million mobile phone users. Secondly, it will be difficult for mobile phone distributors to confirm real names and carry out the relevant checks during the sales process.

The MIIT had planned to implement the real name registration policy in 2006, due to a public call for a clamp down on spam SMS messages. However, trials in Sichuan Province were unsuccessful due to a lack of support and the scheme was abandoned, he added.

Interfax commentary: Mobile real name registration has been discussed in China for a long time, but little has been done about it. The MIIT's proposal for real name registration will bring huge changes to the telecom industry if it comes into effect. Although the massive undertaking of registering 200 million unregistered users will be tough, the real name registration policy will allow the mobile phone information security industry to grow.

12/23 10:11
Tagged as: MIIT commentary