CHINA Law and Practice Contributed by: Hongyu Liu, Shuaifeng Wang, Dongda Wei and Chen Rong, King & Capital Law Firm
ated biased reporting. However, there are exceptions and “case-by-case balancing”. Exceptions may arise when significant public interest is involved, such as the need to disclose information to find missing or abducted minors. For highly socially impactful juve ‑ nile crime cases, although the trial remains closed, judicial organs might conduct moderate legal publicity by releasing typical cases. In such instances, all iden ‑ tifiable information is strictly handled, and reporting focuses on the legal significance and warning/edu ‑ cational role of the case, rather than case details or personal identities. This requires judicial organs to carefully balance public right to know and the protec ‑ tion of minors’ rights. Minors are automatically anonymised in case reports. The scope of anonymisation goes far beyond just the name. The law requires comprehensive shielding of all information that could lead to the identification of the minor, including their address, photos, images, school attended, ID number and home address. When uploading judgment documents to public platforms (eg, China Judgements Online), courts must tech ‑ nically process the documents. Specific operations include: • replacing the minor’s name with aliases like “Zhang M”; • blurring detailed home addresses to something like “X City, X District, X Road, Number X”; and • deleting or concealing personal information like ID numbers and bank account numbers.
There are even cases where courts have received procuratorial suggestions for disclosing minor iden ‑ tity information in public documents, requiring them to withdraw the documents and republish them after proper anonymisation. Parents can request anonymisation of the proceed ‑ ings by applying to the court for a non-public hearing or anonymised handling; the court will decide based on the specific circumstances. Beyond applying for a non-public hearing, parents can collaborate with the handling authorities to bind litigation participants. For example, the Measures for Restricting the Dis ‑ closure of Information Concerning Minors Involved in Litigation, jointly signed in Beijing’s Haidian District, stipulate that the handling authorities should inform litigation participants, support personnel or observers that they must not disclose or disseminate informa ‑ tion about the minors involved in the case externally. Parents can remind and urge the handling personnel to fulfil this notification obligation. If they find that a minor’s information has been improperly disclosed, parents can, based on Article 69 of the Minor Pro ‑ tection Law, request relevant departments to inter ‑ vene. Violations of minors’ privacy may constitute acts against public security management and be subject to administrative penalties by public security organs according to law.
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