University students across China will be required to have their fingerprints scanned for a two-month long-distance running program, which begins on Nov 12.

However, Chen stressed that the Ministry of Education has signed a contract with the company to safeguard the students' privacy and prevent their personal information from being leaked.

She admitted that the company could economically benefit from the increased web traffic.

Calls to the telephone number listed on the company's website went unanswered on Thursday.

A fingerprint is part of a person's privacy, so the students should have the right to choose whether to participate in this manner, Zhang Jian, a lawyer at the Yijia Law Firm in Beijing told China Daily on Thursday.

The requirement asking for fingerprint scans does not violate any law or infringe on the students' right to privacy, providing the readings are not misused, he said.

Ye Xinglin, a lawyer at the Beijing-based S&P Law Firm, said the students' concerns demonstrated increased social awareness of the need for privacy protection in China.

"The policymakers should clarify the punishment that will be enforced if the students' personal information is misused," he added.