China Judgments Online Preservation Program/Privacy request workflow

This page describes how to report and handle potential disclosure of personal data in documents imported under the China Judgments Online Preservation Program.

It is written for two audiences:

• readers who discover an issue and want to report it
• zhwikisource administrators who will review reports, take local action, and forward cases to stewards if needed

Legal basis used as a reference point

Chinese courts have their own rules for what should be published and what must be removed/redacted before publication. This workflow uses those rules as a practical reference when deciding what should be removed or masked on-wiki.

The main reference is the Supreme People's Court "Provisions on People's Courts' Release of Judgments on the Internet" (2016, effective 2016-10-01). English translation.

Key parts used here:

• Article 8-9: name redaction requirements for specified categories of people (including minors and certain participants in criminal cases)
• Article 10: information that "shall be deleted" (home addresses, contact info, ID numbers, bank accounts, health conditions, etc.)
• Article 4: categories that "must not" be released online (e.g., crimes by minors; divorce/custody matters involving rights of minors)

This workflow does not assume the source is perfectly compliant. When a document appears to violate these rules, it is treated as a redaction failure and handled as a privacy request.

What kinds of issues this workflow is for

This workflow is for cases where a document appears to contain personal data that should not be publicly displayed, especially when it looks like a redaction failure in the source text.

The SPC rules, in particular, Article 4, 8-10 can be used as a useful checklist:

• Article 4 must-not-publish:
  • 4(2) crimes by minors
  • 4(3) cases closed by mediation or by affirming a people's mediation agreement, except where release is needed to protect specified public or private interests
  • 4(4) divorce litigation or cases involving the rearing or custody of minor children
• Articles 8-9 name-redaction rules:
  • 8(1) parties and legally designated representatives in marriage and family cases or inheritance disputes
  • 8(2) victims, their legally designated representatives, incidental civil plaintiffs, their legally designated representatives, witnesses, and expert evaluators in criminal cases
  • 8(3) minors and their legally designated representatives
  • Article 9 gives the masking style, including the use of "某" and Arabic numerals where needed
• Article 10 delete-or-mask rules:
  • 10(1) natural persons' home addresses, contact information, ID numbers, bank account numbers, health conditions, vehicle license plate numbers, property certificate numbers, and other personal information
  • 10(2) legal persons' and other organizations' bank account numbers, vehicle license plate numbers, property certificate numbers, and similar information
  • 10(4) personal-privacy information in family disputes, personality-rights disputes, and similar disputes

This workflow is also for situations where discoverability changes the risk. A string that is buried in an unindexed database can become easy to search after being hosted on Wikimedia, including via search engines. When that happens, editors may treat it as a privacy issue even if it previously attracted little attention.

How to report (how to start a request)

Send the report to the mailing list wikisource-zh-admins@lists.wikimedia.org. This mailing list is directly monitored by zhwikisource administrators.

Information to include:

1. page link
2. docId (if shown on the page)
3. if you can access CJO, whether the corresponding CJO page appears to have updated redactions or has been taken down
4. what should be removed or masked (quote a short excerpt or describe the exact location)
5. why it is a privacy concern (e.g., personal address, phone number, ID)
6. any other context that would help administrators verify the issue quickly

Do not post sensitive strings publicly on-wiki unless there is no other practical way to identify the problem. If a public note is needed, keep it high-level and say that the details were sent through the mailing list.

What happens after a report is filed

Reports are handled in three steps: private intake and investigation, local protective action, then steward escalation if needed.

Step 1: intake and investigation

zhwikisource administrators review the report privately and determine whether the reported disclosure is genuine. They may ask follow-up questions via the mailing list if the location of the problematic text is unclear.

Step 2: local protective action

Once the incident has been investigated and confirmed, a zhwikisource administrator should use RevisionDelete as the first local action to hide the affected revision or log entry.

Typical local actions include:

• remove the sensitive text from public view with RevisionDelete
• protect the page if needed to prevent re-posting
• document the action in the mailing list discussion without unnecessarily repeating the sensitive data

In some cases, the page may be removed from public view if that is the safest way to address the issue.

Step 3: forward to stewards if needed

Some cases may require suppression / oversight beyond local RevisionDelete. If so, zhwikisource administrators may forward the incident to stewards. They should summarize the issue at a high level and avoid reposting sensitive strings unless they are needed for the steward action.

For traceability, each report should be closed with a short summary note stating:

• what action was taken locally
• whether the issue was confirmed
• whether the incident was forwarded to stewards
• whether the issue appears isolated or systematic
• If imports are ongoing, whether any change is needed to the ingestion pipeline before further imports

For sensitive cases, the closure note should also be high-level and avoid repeating the sensitive data. If any public note is posted on-wiki, it should also stay high-level.