Officially dubbed the "Golden Shield Project," China’s sophisticated Internet security filter is more commonly known as the "Great Firewall of China." It was created for political reasons and the desire of the Chinese government to block certain types of Internet content from its citizens for the good of Chinese society as a whole, according to the Chinese government.
The Internet made its debut in China in 1994. In 1998 the Ministry of Public Security began working on the Golden Shield Project to control Internet usage. The goal was to prohibit use of the Internet for the following purposes: "harming national security, disclosing state secrets or injuring the interests of state or society." When the program went live in 2003 Internet users were no longer allowed to access, publish or transmit any information considered subversive or contrary to their Constitution, according to officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Blocked information can include anything that contradicts the political ideologies of the Communist Party of China, promotes free market practices, distortion of truth, decadent behaviour or in general promotes any type of subversive behaviour.
The Golden Shield Project was created in 1998 following the arrest of many leaders of the China Democracy Party (CDP) for subversion and opposition of the Chinese government. The CDP was created by activists of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Their application for official registration of the CDP party in 1998 was denied by the PRC followed by the politically motivated arrests. This was due to PRC fears that the CDP would use the Internet to spread their ideology and the Communist government would not be able to maintain control of the information. The CDP was subsequently banned.
Much more than just an Internet filter, the Great Firewall of China works to censor information as well as building a massive database of Chinese citizens and is incorporated into a national surveillance network. Many technological tools are used to achieve this goal including: tracking of credit and smart card transactions, facial and speech recognition, surveillance video and Internet usage.
Chinese officials claim that they only censor harmful web content but the system has caused disruptions to email access at politically strategic times on numerous occasions. The latest attack on information access by the Chinese government came in the form a block on access to Gmail via the Android Marketplace although access was restored within a few days citing a technical issue that was corrected.