Penalties for illegal mapping

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2...715.htmTougher penalties mapped out to fight illegal surveys
Updated: 2012-10-23 01:22 By Wang Qian ( China Daily)


Amendment to focus on foreigners gathering sensitive information
Foreigners carrying out illegal surveys, mapping without permission or marking the location of key facilities without authorization, will face tougher penalties amid measures to enhance security of strategic areas.
Tackling these activities, and the requisite punishment, is under discussion as authorities draft amendments to the National Surveying and Mapping Law.
According to the State Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geo-information, the amendments have been included in the State Council's work agenda for 2012.
Li Weibing, deputy director of legislation and industry management for the administration, said that he hopes the draft will be finished this year and the law will be implemented by 2017.
Almost 40 illegal surveying and mapping cases were detected between 2006 and 2011, mostly in border areas such as the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the administration said.
"Coordinates, topography and information regarding key areas and core facilities are top secret," Li said. "Once acquired by another country the information could be used to attack targets in wartime."
Li said the draft would consider criminal liability in cases where illegal surveys were carried out and endangered Chinese citizens.
The current law states that any foreign individual conducting an illegal survey will be deported and face a maximum fine of 500,000 yuan ($78,900).
In 2010, Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced Xue Feng, a geologist from the US, to eight years in prison and fined him 200,000 yuan for trying to buy data about the Chinese oil industry. He was charged with attempting to obtain and traffic State secrets.
The sentence showed the country's determination, legal experts said.
Li Qinggong, deputy secretary-general of the China Council for National Security Policy Studies, said that foreigners, or Chinese people conducting illegal surveys, should face heavy penalties.
The State Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geo-information said most of the foreigners found guilty of carrying out illegal surveys were Japanese or US citizens and border regions were their top targets.
From 2005 to 2011, 10 cases of illegal surveying by foreigners, or involving a foreign element, were investigated in Xinjiang, China Network Television, an online broadcaster run by China Central Television, reported in May.
In the latest case released by the administration, a US citizen was found using two global positioning system receivers in August last year to record more than 90,000 coordinates near a military base in Xinjiang.
Ye Yinhu, director of legislation and industry management for the State Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geo-information, told China Network Television that the US citizen arrived in Xinjiang from Beijing on the premise of registering a travel agency to offer outdoor tours to foreigners in Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital, and other places in the region.
The two receivers were for professional surveying and mapping activities and he was fined 20,000 yuan, while the Xinjiang Surveying and Mapping Department confiscated his equipment and data, he added.
In February 2010, a Japanese citizen illegally recorded 598 coordinates, including those of a military site in Xinjiang.
Because Xinjiang neighbors eight countries, the most for any Chinese region, and is rich in resources, it attracts attention, said Li, at the China Council for National Security Policy Studies.
He added some overseas organizations had taken advantage of the eagerness of local governments to attract foreign investment and directly asked for geographic details. Others, he said, used the cover of setting up joint ventures and cooperative projects.
"As surveying technology develops, illegal activities are becoming harder to detect as equipment gets smaller," the administration's Li said.

On a personal note, I can report that during my little encounter with the PAPF on easter 2012, the police explicitly asked me if I had recorded any GPS tracks. Fortunatly, a simple "no, I didn't" was enough to dodge that bullet...

Well this place rocks... would be nice if other external parties took a leaf from the CCCP book and applied tit-for-tat mentality to any and all things Ch!nese... sorry to say it, but many other jurisdictions and power players are selling themselves short in the race game... there are huge movements of knowledge and technologies happening right before our very eyes, but many are too blinded to see it, nor consider what if anything this might mean to the world order... scaremongering, perhaps, but I think not. Time for some of the peasantry here to get a lick of their own medicine... the type that isn't based on some hocus pocus supposedly herbal cr@p. Oh and the disclaimer kicker for those that care... YMMV.

This is confusing. It sounds like anyone using the GPS on his phone is technically "mapping without permission". There must be hundreds of GPS trackers sold every day on Taobao. I'll definitely remember how to answer that GPS tracking question, though I have not encountered it before.

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Originally Posted by Nuhaus

This is confusing. It sounds like anyone using the GPS on his phone is technically "mapping without permission". There must be hundreds of GPS trackers sold every day on Taobao. I'll definitely remember how to answer that GPS tracking question, though I have not encountered it before.

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The issue is one that has been in place for a number of years, and seems like rather than a softening of the attitude, it is more of the same BS. It's the reason that Garmin, had issues with Unistrong their Chinese partner. It is the reason that Unistrong initially would not sell maps of PRC to anyone with a genuine Garmin GPS device bought abroad... yes, one could say me and Garmin and Unistrong have had an interesting history... including one letter from a lawyer on behalf of Garmin USA, which I easily shot down with a well crafted written response outlining the real situation on the ground in PRC. Essentially I corrected a lot of the facts presented in the letter to correct supposed facts and assertions... anyway enough on that.

For all those who are blinded by the veneer of Ch!na, there is a darker underbelly... and it is anything but a bed of roses, and Ch!nese don't want to admit it or any of us outsiders to know about it.

Again, YMMV.

This is an interesting issue that has been in the back of my mind for a while.

Several years ago, in Harbin, I bought a Garmin GPS for my vehicle from a Garmin shop. The shop was quite reluctant to sell a GPS to a foreigner, but after the shop made a few calls, I managed to walk out with my basic Nuvi (at the time, the only one with English pinyin). It was a strange experience, and I subsequently found out about the official concerns regarding "foreigners with GPS devices."

I've since upgraded, in Beijing, without anyone giving it a second thought.

I love my GPS (couldn't live without it, actually), but have absolutely no idea how to record/save/load tracks (only waypoints).

But, as Nuhaus mentions, I use GPS trackers (and the online route tracking) on all my bikes, all the time. Aside from them frequently draining my batteries, they are great. And I think there is some way to use my mobile as a GPS device, but I've never quite figured that out.

I guess if the authorities needed a reason to make my life difficult, this could be one option.

You go out on your moto or mountain bike and log some trails, only to find yourself jailed and then deported... WTF? Can't wait to read how they spin my arrest. Even my point and shoot camera auto logs GPS data with every shot.

Articles like this shed light on China's exceptional performance at the special olympics.

Cheers!
ChinaV

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Originally Posted by ChinaV

Articles like this shed light on China's exceptional performance at the special olympics.

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Hahahahaha.

Ridiculous 'laws' like this make the government look like such pussies.
They're worried about a few evil foreigners with gps devices?
Do they really still think that having shitty offset maps will give them any kind of tactical edge over other countries?
Do they not know that the offset algorithm is well documented abroad and freely available online?

Sissy fits like this just makes them look weaker...

Yeah, frankly the ubiquitousness of smartphones now and the many GPS apps available on them make this a sort of null issue in my opinion. I just did a trip from Beijing to Shanghai (and back) and used a GPS app on my phone the whole way. In fact, I was using several to test out how well they each worked. The result was that I had a GPS telling me in my headphones where to go the entire way plus Google Latitude running in the background tracking where I was going. This can be done for free with pretty much any smartphone.

I wasn't even actually aware that I might have been doing something wrong at the time, but I guess this is like many laws in China where they make something illegal but only enforce if there's something to gain (most likely a political gain) from it.

I heard of a story a while ago (I wish I could find it now, but alas) of a foreigner I believe in the 80s or maybe early 90s that was traveling around China taking pictures and eventually arrested and kicked out as a result as he was deemed to have been "collecting sensitive information".

God, how pathetic!
The American military probably have every sq foot of the entire planet mapped from space in 1000% more detail than any current commercially available GPS. I doubt they need any spies looking at second-rate Chinese army nonsense. They are probably just ruining the lives of innocent foreigners with their paranoia.

I use maps, though, but I still don't think even that makes me safe.

Your posted hyperlink has been redirected, it now takes you to the USA version of china daily.

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Originally Posted by ZMC888

God, how pathetic!
The American military probably have every sq foot of the entire planet mapped from space in 1000% more detail than any current commercially available GPS. I doubt they need any spies looking at second-rate Chinese army nonsense. They are probably just ruining the lives of innocent foreigners with their paranoia.

I use maps, though, but I still don't think even that makes me safe.

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Paranoia? Did someone say paranoia? :deal:

Coke is next: http://www.gokunming.com/en/blog/ite...ation_in_china

What's next? Ronald McDonald in fact CIA operative? :lol8: