By Tenzin Dharpo
DHARAMSHALA, Sept. 6: Following last month’s declaration by Chinese authorities that electronic data such as social media posts and private chats can be used in court as evidence, the law was officially implemented from Oct. 1 with activists and experts calling it an effort to give more teeth to the government in clamping down dissent.
Last month, Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and the Ministry of Public Security issued a document titled, “Regulation on Collecting and Using Electronic Data as Evidence” which stated that the government by law can use data from micro blogging site Weibo and Moments (additional feature on WeChat similar to face book), and private chat from instant messages and group chats, as evidence against the user in the court.
Furthermore, websites, blogs, micro-blogs, Moments, forums, cloud storage services, text messages, emails, instant messages, group chats, registered online identities, electronic financial transactions, log-in records, text documents, pictures, videos, electronic certificates, computer programs and other related electronic documents can also be subjected to access for government jurisdiction.
Patrick Poon, researcher at Amnesty International in Hong Kong told Quartz, “The Law legitimizes the public security bureau’s actions to take away people’s electronic data in the name of investigation.”
In Tibet, such measures have been used without impunity by Chinese officials. Among multiple cases, five Tibetans including two monks of Drilda monastery in Sog County were arrested by Chinese authorities on March 6, 2014 for allegedly sharing pictures and messages on WeChat, China based popular messaging application. Few Tibetans were arrested for sharing pictures of the exiled Tibetan leader His Holiness the Dalai Lama just last year.
WeChat’s voice-messaging service has enabled security officials to monitor user’s movements in real time and access other information shared via the app, ultimately leading to prosecution of users inside Tibet.
