About Third Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security

Third Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security

The Third Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security is a research institute of China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) based in Shanghai, with its address recorded in its researchers' publications as Shanghai 201204. It works on information and network security, network identity, smart policing and artificial intelligence-based public security technology. It is the MPS institute whose specialised certification is required of firms carrying out Multi-Level Protection Scheme (MLPS) cybersecurity assessment work in China, it operates the MPS Key Laboratory of Information Network Security, and in May 2025 it publicly unveiled artificial intelligence surveillance and analysis tools at the 12th China International Exhibition on Police Equipment in Beijing.

Focus on information network security

United States congressional research on Chinese technology policy summarises the institute's focus as smart police research and network security, and its own publication record confirms that emphasis. Its researchers publish under the dual affiliation of the institute and the Key Lab of Information Network Security of the Ministry of Public Security, located with it in Shanghai. Where the MPS First Research Institute in Beijing is associated above all with video standards and physical security equipment, the Third Research Institute is the ministry's centre of gravity for the security of networks themselves: how information systems are protected, graded, tested and certified, how citizens prove their identity online, and how police analyse the data that networks generate.

Leadership and research profile

The institute's best documented director is Hu Chuanping, a researcher who has been engaged in public security research for more than thirty years and has worked in police equipment, information network security and public security applications of the Internet of Things. Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which appointed him an adjunct professor in March 2013, records that he achieved original results in special robots, flexible control systems and video structured description technology with significant engineering and real-world application, that he twice won the second prize of the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award, held the title of National Public Security Technology Advanced Individual and received the special allowance of the State Council, and that the Ministry of Public Security recommended him as a candidate for the Chinese Academy of Engineering in both 2003 and 2011. At his 2013 appointment ceremony he lectured on public safety applications of Internet of Things technology and video structured description, and described the institute's successes in eID network authentication, RFID radio frequency identification, video structured description and digitised policing work.

Network electronic identity: eID

The institute is the technical home of China's network electronic identity, known as eID. Electronic identity technology was introduced to China in 2010, and institute researchers explain it as a system under which citizens use an electronic identity on the network as a remote digital identity certificate. The eID is based on cryptographic technology and uses smart security chips as its carrier; identity document information in an eID card contains a hash value of the holder's basic identity information together with personal information certificates signed by the Ministry of Public Security's Citizen Network Identification System, and access to the private key used for authentication is protected by a PIN and held in the tamper-proof portion of the chip. Each certificate carries the holder's name and a unique identification number called the eID code, designed so that personal real identity information is protected in the code itself. Institute patents from 2012 and 2014, filed in the institute's name, cover methods for moving eID state between a carrier terminal and the eID service system and for protecting eID identifier information through secret key scattering, and a 2019 institute paper proposed a secure data access method based on electronic identity for the mobile internet, using NFC-enabled mobile devices and a remote secure storage protocol so that users can store and update sensitive data such as passwords, keys and accounts. The work addresses a practical problem of the mobile era: how a state-issued identity can be used for remote authentication without exposing the underlying personal data.

The MLPS certification role

The institute's most far-reaching administrative function concerns the Multi-Level Protection Scheme, China's system, now in its MLPS 2.0 form under the Cybersecurity Law, for grading and protecting information systems according to the harm their compromise would cause. Organisations that assess other bodies' compliance must themselves be qualified, and procurement documents across China repeatedly specify that bidders for level protection assessment work must hold the specialised Level Protection Assessment certification issued by the Third Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security. A 2026 procurement by North University of China in Shanxi, for example, commissioned comprehensive MLPS 2.0 evaluations of its Level 2 and Level 3 information systems, covering deep technical and administrative audits, vulnerability identification and corrective recommendations, and required bidding contractors to hold that institute-issued certification. A customs anti-smuggling bureau project in Haikou was reported in the same period as part of the same compliance drive. This gatekeeping role means the institute shapes the market for cybersecurity assessment services nationwide: it does not merely advise on standards but decides which firms are credentialed to judge compliance with them.

Standards drafting

The institute also drafts the technical standards of network security. It is listed as a drafting unit of GB/T 28451-2023, the national standard setting the technical specification for network intrusion prevention systems, released on 23 May 2023 and implemented from 1 December 2023, replacing the 2012 version. The drafting group combined the institute with universities and leading Chinese security companies and the China Network Security Review Technology and Certification Center, and the standard revised matters including the classification of intrusion prevention products from the earlier three-level scheme to basic and enhanced levels. Participation in drafting of this kind, alongside its certification work, places the institute on both sides of the regulatory process: helping to write the rules for security products and operating within the system that tests organisations against security rules.

Vehicle identity and the Shanghai World Expo

The institute's identity technology has been applied to vehicles as well as people. For the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, it combined results from the Eleventh Five-Year National Science and Technology Support Plan project on an automotive digital standard source system to build a vehicle safety supervision system for the Expo Park, which received high affirmation from the Security Department of the World Expo Affairs Coordination Bureau. The system addressed a difficult control problem: the park received embassy and consular vehicles, material service, sanitation, security, firefighting and ambulance vehicles across zones with different access restrictions. Its solution paired passive ultra-high-frequency RFID electronic documents fitted to vehicles with image and video recognition, a dual recognition mechanism in which a vehicle's electronic certificate and its image had to agree before it was released through an inspection base station. The system comprised a card management system, base station groups, an information centre and an information service platform; the central information centre exchanged vehicle blacklist and violation information across regions over the public security network, creating what the institute called an electronic identity mirror for each vehicle, linking its static identity to dynamic information about time and road space.

AI tools at the 2025 police equipment expo

The institute attracted international attention at the 12th China International Exhibition on Police Equipment, held at the Beijing Shougang Convention and Exhibition Center from 14 to 17 May 2025, organised by the Ministry of Public Security with a record 64,000 square metres of exhibition space and 835 companies from 12 countries and regions, including dedicated zones for intelligent unmanned equipment and emerging artificial intelligence applications. Reporting from the exhibition described the Third Research Institute unveiling a surveillance system capable of monitoring the encrypted messaging application Telegram: according to the institute, the tool tracks Telegram accounts registered with Chinese mobile numbers, which are subject to real-name registration, and the system was reported to have collected over 30 billion messages and to monitor approximately 70 million accounts, including 390,000 public channels and groups. The institute also unveiled an artificial intelligence model intended to address lone wolf attacks, which analyses shopping records, search histories and social media activity to identify individuals exhibiting extreme behaviour; the model was reported to be based on services from Dify, a Chinese startup offering an open-source large language model application development platform. Exhibition access itself required prior registration by QR code, submission of personal identification and a screening process.

Ongoing institutional activity

The institute continues to operate as a working security organisation as well as a research body. Procurement records show it issuing its own competitive negotiation announcement for the procurement of cybersecurity equipment in October 2026, with a deadline of 1 November 2026, indicating continuing investment in its own network security capability. Its research output, visible in conference papers and patents on identity, network security and data access, continues to be produced from its Shanghai base under the Key Laboratory of Information Network Security affiliation.

Significance

The Third Research Institute matters because so much of China's cybersecurity governance passes through it. It built and researches the eID system through which the state issues network identity, it credentials the assessors who certify MLPS compliance for universities, customs services and other institutions across the country, it helps draft the national standards for security products, and it develops the analytical tools, displayed publicly in 2025, with which police monitor communications platforms and model individual risk. A reader who understands this institute understands a large part of how network security, digital identity and data-driven policing are organised in China, and why a single Shanghai research institute appears in procurement documents, standards title pages and international reporting alike.