China's efforts to better protect people's personal information resulted in a rapid rise in the number of lawsuits last year, according to the work reports of the country's top judicial authorities unveiled on Tuesday.

Prosecutors nationwide charged 3,436 people with harming people's personality rights－breaches against people's right to privacy or reputations－for example through online defamation or misuse of people's personal information. The figure represented a 51.3 percent year-on-year increase, according to the Supreme People's Procuratorate work report.

The report was submitted to the ongoing fifth session of the 13th National People's Congress, China's top legislature, for review on Tuesday.

A typical case mentioned in the report happened in Guangdong province, and involved a man surnamed Wu who was arrested in connection with an online libel case in late December. Police said Wu downloaded a photo of a woman and her grandfather from the internet, uploaded it and falsely said they were husband and wife, which seriously harmed the woman's reputation.