During their annual gatherings in March, deputies to the National People's Congress (NPC), the nation's lawmakers, and members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), top political advisors, put forward suggestions on a range of issues, some of which have attracted wide attention.

For instance, Fang Yan, an NPC deputy, proposed that in cases where domestic violence exists and a party can provide valid evidence proving that their personal safety is under real threat, the 30-day cooling-off period required for an uncontested divorce should not apply.

Xiong Shuilong, a member of the CPPCC National Committee, suggested removing people's addresses from their identity cards to prevent addresses being exploited by criminals or collected and stored by businesses.

Xia Yan (Gmw.cn): Currently, even if the victim of domestic violence and the abuser have agreed to divorce, they still need to wait for a cooling-off period before divorcing. During this period, the victim faces the risk of secondary harm, such as the abuser making threats or seeking revenge. It is for this reason that Fang has put forward this proposal.

What we are talking about here is "uncontested divorce." In cases of domestic violence, one can directly choose litigious divorce. However, for most people, litigious divorce is a relatively complex and unfamiliar judicial process.

The 30-day cooling-off period does not explicitly address situations involving domestic violence, which means even in cases of clear harm, the affected individuals may still be forced to maintain a formal marital relationship with the abuser. Fang's proposal to cancel the 30-day cooling off period in these cases offers a faster and smoother pathway to help victims out.

Even if the suggestion is adopted, the difficulties in providing evidence are likely to remain. Simplifying the process at the institutional level and strengthening the protection of victims also need to be carried out urgently.

Guo Yuanpeng (Rednet.com): Xiong made the suggestion to revise the Law on Resident Identity Cards to remove the requirement to include the holder's address, and it should be stipulated that any commercial institution or social organization collecting personal information must only collect the minimum details necessary. This proposal addresses the public's widespread anxiety over personal information security.

The core function of an identity card is to prove who you are, not to disclose where you live. In the past, when information was not so easily available, addresses on identity cards were used to facilitate identity verification and management.

Today, information is highly interconnected. Identity cards are widely used beyond government affairs, including in scenarios like hotel check-ins and online registrations. An identity card with detailed address information, through countless instances of being shown, photocopied and uploaded, has become a high-risk channel for privacy leakage.

Nowadays, identity cards are embedded with chips. In situations where address verification is really necessary—such as when handling affairs at police stations or processing property transfers—the address information can be retrieved through backend systems. For occasions where address is completely unnecessary, such as checking into a hotel or registering for an app, this may help prevent institutions from casually collecting such sensitive information.

We hope this suggestion can be taken seriously, so that identity cards can better reflect their core essence of identity verification. BR

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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