Pingtan county, Fujian province, adopted a real-name registration system for cell phones on Sunday, in accordance with a directive issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology requiring people to provide their real names when they buy a cell phone.

The country's three major communication carriers – China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom – have all adopted the requirements of the ministry.

And the communication carriers have vowed to encourage their clients to re-register if they are not using their real names.

People who own a cell phone that did not necessitate providing their real name will not have any problems regarding services such as adding credit, but they will not be able to transfer ownership of the cell phone or apply for a new SIM card if the old one gets lost, according to an employee at a local China Telecom store.

The real-name registration system will allow the authorities to crack down on spam, as they will be able to trace the spammer.

But some people say they are concerned about privacy and leaks of personal information.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Niva Whyman