SPC Releases Guidelines for Personal Information Infringement Criminal Cases

On May 9th, the Supreme People's Court released the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Some Issues Concerning the Applicable Law in Hearing Criminal Cases of Infringing Personal Information of Citizens, passed at the 1712th meeting of the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) on March 20, 2017 and at the 63rd meeting of the 12th Procuratorial Committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) on April 26, 2017. The interpretation is corresponding with the articles involving personal information in the Criminal Law, and will come into force as of June 1, 2017.
 
The SPC & SPP Interpretation contains thirteen articles, largely covering the scope of personal information of citizens, which refers to "all information that is recorded electronically or otherwise and can be used solely or together with other information to identify a natural person or reflect the activity of such natural person, including his name, ID, contact information & mailing address, residence address, account No. & passwords, property owned, whereabouts & tracks, etc." (Article 1) The interpretation integrates the personal information definition outlined in Cyber Security Law (Article 76) with the scope of personal information put forward by SPC, SPP and MPS in 2013 Notice on Judicial Punishment of Personal Information Infringement Activities , and covers personal information recorded in digital format.
 
This Interpretation is significant as it guides the judicial system's decisions on what personal information is, what is considered personal information infringement and how to handle personal information infringement cases among others.