China's Ministry of Civil Affairs has gathered information on everyone registered as 'married' from each province-level district. This information will gradually be available on the Internet for public view, as an attempt to stop bigamy, overlapping registrations, and other issues, Xinhua news agency reported Tuesday.

The local government used to be in charge of collecting marriage registrations, their efforts are now being used to set up the nation-wide data base, said Pan Jisheng, who is in charge of all the files and documents of the Civil Affairs Ministry.

It will be an efficient way to prevent illegal activities such as bigamy, said Pan.

People who breach bigamy clauses in Chinese criminal law will be punished by imprisonment with a maximum of two years.

The ministry also published a regulation in regards to the management of the marital files on Sunday, which said each marriage license and registration will be stored for 100 years.

(Shanghai Daily February 8, 2006)