BEIJING — China will impose tough measures on cyber crimes in accordance with the law, in a bid to cleanse the Internet space, a report said on March 12.

“The cyber space must not be allowed to descend into a lawless realm,” a report delivered by Zhou Qiang on the work of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) said. The chief justice said efforts were made to safeguard Internet order and cleanse the cyber space in 2014.

In particular, the report said the SPC enhanced crackdown on offenders who infringed upon other citizens’ privacy using information and Internet technologies, thus protecting personal information security. The report cited the case of two GlaxoSmithKline-linked investigators — the first of its kind involving foreigners in China — as an example.

In August last year, British Peter Humphrey and his American wife Yu Ying Zeng were sentenced to two and half a years and two years in prison, respectively, for illegally obtaining private information on Chinese citizens.

The couple were hired by GSK China as private investigators in 2013.