After six years of futilely trying to make people register their headphone using real epithet , China ’s take plans to crack down . According to the land - run China News Service , the more than 100 million the great unwashed who have n’t yet register SIM card with veridical public figure need to do so by June 2017 , or else their fluid help could be unplug .

The thought behind the prescript is that real name make it easier to discover and dissuade criminals , but , of row , real name conveniently make censoring and surveillance easier as well . There are two main problem contributing to obtuse advance on compliancy . One , mass who ’ve had their phones since before the actual - name formula were announced in 2010never needed to provide identicalness information , or had much incentive to . Two : Enforcement has been lax . For a recollective time after the rule were announced , multitude only needed to bring home the bacon someone ’s state ID into the system to get a SIM card , and leaked IDs are easy enough to find online .

Now , the government ’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is emphasizing that everyone needs to furnish valid ID when buy a SIM circuit card , and foreigners must show their passports . ( The question of how MIIT will hunt down people who retain to use their old phones that have been fraudulently register is still up in the aura . )

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

China used to rely on its big telecom companies to impose the rules , but in late year , it has turn over up the pressure by relying on technical school company and postulate pop internet sites and apps to restrict accession to the great unwashed who do n’t recreate by the rules .

Four years ago , microblogging web site Sina Weibo started requiring a mobile number or ID poster to post — a change thatsome have fault for the site ’s flagging popularity . With messaging app WeChat quickly taking over the mainland , the government has now say that all messaging apps , too , require material - name registration . Most recently , the political science has require that users of wallet apps like WeChat Pay and Alibaba ’s Alipay link their account to an ID by July 1 or have access to their funds limited . Still , even with these new exploit , real - name readjustment is a prison term - consuming , expensive process , specially in a country with as many internet users as China .

[ China News Service , viaTech in Asia , TechCrunch ]

William Duplessie

China

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