□ Our reporter Zhu Ningning
The countdown to the promulgation of my country's first anti-telecommunications network fraud law has entered.
The 122nd Chairman's Meeting of the 13th National People's Congress Standing Committee decided that the 36th meeting of the 13th National People's Congress Standing Committee will be held in Beijing from August 30 to September 2.
The chairman's meeting suggested that the Standing Committee review the draft law on anti-telecom and network fraud.
This is the third time the draft has been submitted for review after two reviews in October 2021 and June 2022.
In recent years, the high incidence of telecommunications and network fraud has been a serious situation, accounting for a large proportion of criminal cases.
Data show that from April 2021 to July 2022, a total of 594,000 telecom and network fraud cases were cracked nationwide.
Behind the high incidence of cases, the illegal disclosure of citizens' personal information is a key link in the cybercrime chain.
This year, the General Office of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress has identified 22 key recommendations for supervision.
Among them, the six optional topics involved in strengthening and innovating social governance and improving people's quality of life include suggestions on "severely cracking down on telecommunication cybercrimes and strengthening judicial protection of personal information".
Joint efforts to squeeze the crime space
Strengthening the judicial protection of citizens' personal information is a concrete manifestation of the judicial organs' implementation of the people-centered development philosophy, and it is also an important part of strengthening the construction of Internet civilization and the rule of law on the Internet.
Since April 2021, all regions and departments have resolutely implemented the decisions and deployments of the CPC Central Committee, and carried out in-depth crackdowns on the telecommunications and network fraud crimes that the people detested deeply with unprecedented strength and measures. Squeeze criminal space.
The Central Politics and Law Commission has incorporated the special rectification of the information network industry into the normalization of the fight against gangsters and evil for deployment.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology organized the three major operators to upgrade and launch the "Card Breaking Action 2.0", and the People's Bank of China carried out in-depth "capital chain" governance.
The Central Cyberspace Administration of China, together with the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, has strengthened network inspection and monitoring and network ecological governance, and focused on rectifying outstanding fraud problems in the Internet industry. By regulating industry management, it has effectively plugged a number of regulatory loopholes and squeezed telecom and network fraud. activity space.
The continuous upward trend of telecom and network fraud crimes has been effectively curbed in recent years.
Public security organs across the country have organized 150 nationwide cluster campaigns; the National Anti-Fraud Center has sent 145 million early warning instructions, intercepted 2.81 billion fraudulent calls, 3.36 billion text messages, blocked 4 million fraudulent domain names and URLs, and urgently intercepted and stopped payments involved. With a capital of 551.8 billion yuan, 109 million people were successfully prevented from being deceived.
In terms of anti-fraud propaganda, the public security organs organized anti-fraud propaganda in communities, rural areas, families, schools, and enterprises, and promoted the installation of the National Anti-Fraud Center App to the whole society. 290 million warnings were issued.
The people's courts at all levels adhered to the policy of severe, comprehensive and accurate punishment, made full use of existing legal provisions, and concluded a large number of telecommunication and network fraud crimes.
Procuratorial organs have continued to increase their efforts to crack down on crimes infringing on citizens' personal information, actively and prudently carried out public interest litigation, carried out litigation source governance in conjunction with judicial case handling, issued Procuratorial Recommendation No.
Increase the criminal punishment of "internal ghosts" in the industry
Although the crackdown on telecommunications and network fraud has achieved remarkable results, and the rapid rise in cases has been effectively curbed, the situation is still grim and complex. In particular, cyber crimes caused by the leakage of personal information are still running at a high level. Procuratorial organs prosecute crimes that infringe on citizens' personal information. There is still a big gap between the number of people and the number of telecommunication and network fraud crimes, which highlights that there is still a lot of room for punishment and crackdown.
During this year's National People's Congress, a number of NPC deputies paid high attention to telecommunications cybercrimes, believing that there is still a lack of targeted crackdown and governance on the disclosure of citizens' personal information, especially the large-scale leakage of personal information by industry "inner ghosts" who take advantage of work convenience. , lack of effective punishment.
"Judging from the criminal cases of infringing citizens' personal information handled by the procuratorial organs in 2021, less than one-third will be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years, and most personnel are still sentenced to less than three years. This is incompatible with the serious harm caused by the leak." Wang Zhao, deputy director of the National People's Congress and deputy director of the Sichuan Radio and Television All-Media News Center, believes that the current deterrent effect of punishment on "inner ghosts" in the industry is not prominent enough.
The loopholes in the internal supervision of the industry platform have also given the opportunity for "inner ghosts".
Wang Zhao found in his research that due to the needs of management services, Internet companies, network platforms and public service departments collect and store a large amount of citizens' personal information, but due to unclear rights and responsibilities, poor management, backward security and other reasons, coupled with more emphasis in practice The sharing and use of information often ignores security protection, which leads to the theft, leakage and misuse of personal information.
Some key industry departments put too much emphasis on performance development, and there is a serious lack of legal education and professional ethics education for employees, and there is an obvious lack of warning education for violations of discipline and law in the industry.
Some practitioners have a weak concept of the rule of law, and a few practitioners have even embarked on the criminal path of buying and selling citizens' personal information in tandem with "black production" gangs, becoming "inner ghosts".
In view of this, Wang Zhao suggested to adhere to the whole chain of punishment, incorporate the punishment of infringing citizens' personal information into the deployment and promotion of the fight against cybercrimes, especially telecommunication network fraud crimes, adhere to the "double investigation in one case", and trace the source of upstream individuals while investigating and handling downstream cybercrimes. Channels and personnel for information leakage, focusing on information acquisition, circulation, use and other links, simultaneously strengthen the entire chain of crackdowns.
In particular, it is necessary to increase the criminal punishment for the behavior of "insiders" in the industry for leaking personal information, set stricter standards than ordinary people in criminal legislation, and simultaneously increase the fines and penalties to form a strong deterrent.
Source governance promotes personal information protection
The implementation of telecommunication network fraud is inseparable from the use of the victim's personal information, and the illegal acquisition of citizens' personal information is often the basic activity of telecommunication network fraud.
In November 2021, the Personal Information Protection Law will come into effect.
As my country's first specialized law to regulate and strengthen the protection of personal information, the law establishes a personal information protection system with clear rights and responsibilities, effective protection, and standardized use.
"Conscientiously implement the relevant provisions of the Personal Information Protection Law, the criminal prosecution and public interest litigation prosecutorial departments should strengthen cooperation and cooperation, strengthen information exchange, resource sharing, clue transfer, personnel collaboration and case handling linkage, and give full play to the two-way synergy between criminal prosecution and public interest litigation prosecution, and effectively strengthen Public welfare protection of citizens’ personal information.” Yan Jianguo, deputy to the National People’s Congress, member of the Central Committee of the Jiusan Society, and director of the Agricultural and Rural Legal Affairs Committee of the All-China Lawyers Association, suggested that for major cases, explore the establishment of a joint case handling team to give full play to the two-way synergy of criminal prosecution and public interest litigation prosecutors , to promote the source management of personal information protection.
Yan Jianguo also believes that punitive damages for personal information protection should be promoted.
"In personal information protection criminal incidental civil public interest lawsuits or separate civil public interest lawsuits against criminal defendants and jointly and severally responsible persons, jointly promote procuratorial organs to propose punitive damages and increase the cost of illegality."
"Only by accurately grasping the victim's personal information can the perpetrator use his personal information to fabricate facts, making it easier for the victim to 'believe the truth'." Zhang Xinbao, a professor at the Law School of Renmin University of China, pointed out that in order to achieve the source control of telecommunication and network fraud, personal information should be strengthened. Protection work, in accordance with the provisions of the Personal Information Protection Law and relevant laws and regulations, strictly regulate personal information processing activities, reduce the possibility of predicate crimes such as crimes against citizens' personal information, and cut off the conditions for the implementation of telecommunication and network fraud crimes.
Regarding the upcoming anti-telecom network fraud law, Zhang Xinbao believes that the introduction of a special anti-telecom network fraud law will play an important role in protecting the property rights and interests of the people, cracking down on illegal and criminal acts of electronic fraud, and comprehensively managing cyberspace. Governance provides legal support, in particular the law sets out detailed obligations for telecommunications network operators, financial institutions and non-financial payment institutions.
"How to make units and individuals who violate relevant obligations strictly bear criminal, administrative and civil tort liabilities in accordance with the law is the key to the implementation of the Anti-Electronic Fraud Law."