Shanghai is planning to share its online marriage records with Shandong Province as the first step in setting up a nationwide online network.

A city-wide network of marriage records was created in 2001. Before that, only paper records were kept of marriage registration, according to Zhou Jixiang, director of the marriage management division of the Shanghai Civil Affairs Bureau.

Since paper archives are hard to trace, people could set up two or more families without being caught by government officials.

"But this online network will catch those law breakers," said Zhou.

The database contains the ID number and social insurance number of everyone who has registered to marry in the city since 2001.

Couples can register at division offices in local districts, where officials can check an individual's marital status quickly by using the database. If nothing goes wrong, couples can get their red marriage certificates within five minutes.

The network can also help couples replace lost marriage certificates.

Online information is only accessible to employees of the office and record owners. The online records will now be kept for a century.

"I found it quite easy," said Wan Qian, who registered with his fiance yesterday afternoon. The process took less than an hour.

"I was a little afraid the procedure would take too much time, but look, I'm married already," said his wife Zhu Pei.

Since the system isn't connected to other cities, bigamists can still set up several families in various cities around the country.

"That's why we need to stretch to other major cities," said Zhou. "We've only started the work with Shandong Province."

Zhou also said in the future the country will have a nation-wide online network, but due to a lack of technology in poor regions, such measures would only be taken in major cities.

(Shanghai Daily February 9, 2006)