China on Friday adopted a regulation requiring the nation's 500 million internet users to register their real names, the latest move from the ruling Communist Party to control online activity.
Lawmakers said the regulation was designed to "enhance the protection of personal information online and safeguard public interests."
Approved by the standing committee of the National People's Congress, the party's state parliament, the regulation requires all internet users to provide "real identification" to service providers.
"There were some concerns about online activity in recent years, especially the security of information," Li Fei, a legal affairs official for the Congress, told reporters following the approval.
Li said the move was a response to recent cases involving illegal use of digital information, hacking and "insulting and defaming others via the internet."
"All those activities seriously harmed the legal interests and rights of individuals ... [and] harmed national security and the public security of the community," he said.
But the regulation promises to protect whistleblowers who expose corrupt officials online with the government using the internet in an anti-corruption campaign launched by new party leader Xi Jinping last month.
A series of state media commentaries have supported the regulation, some of them saying that rumours of an apocalypse this month had shown the dangers of uncontrolled internet access.
"Only regulation can make [the internet] safer and more convenient," said a front-page editorial last week by the People's Daily, the party's official newspaper.
The Global Times newspaper said the internet had "changed the world, including the lives of Chinese people."
"The exposure of private data as well as illegal online activity have destroyed the positive environment of this new medium," it said.
China's estimated number of internet users has mushroomed to more than 500 million, or about 40 per cent of the population.
The government and internet firms employ thousands of online censors and block access to Twitter, Facebook and other international social media services and news websites.
Its surveillance tools include keyword filters and close monitoring of micro-blogs and phone numbers used by activists.
Police have jailed or fined dozens of rights activists and other internet users who posted online content that was deemed illegal.
Beijing-based Zhai Xiaobing was arrested in early November for spreading "false terrorist information" after he posted a joke on Twitter about the death of Communist Party leaders.