Despite official promises that the Olympics would help open up China, Internet censorship is still widespread, according to data from our specially designed tracking gadget.

Amnesty International Australia's Chinese Internet Censorship Index (CICI) index – which was set up especially for our campaign about human rights in China – has been measuring the level of Internet censorship in China by testing selected websites and then reporting the results.

The CICI index, which is monitoring about 40 websites and pages dealing with sensitive issues – such as Tiananmen Square protests, Falun Gong and Taiwan and Tibetan independence – shows there is still a lot of Internet censorship in China.

Even after the Great Firewall restrictions were supposedly partially lifted as the Olympics began in August, we barely saw a blip on the CICI index - many sensitive topics were still clearly blocked, says one of the team who helped develop CICI.

In the lead-up to and after the Olympics, very little changed in the limited number of sites the CICI was tracking, despite statements from the Chinese Government claiming that blocks had been lifted.

There have been changes for some sites – like the BBC news website which is now accessible – but the vast majority of blocked sites remain blocked.

Daily monitoring

Our CICI graph has constantly hovered around the 50% mark – which means about half the sites in the index are blocked based on the tests run through the China-based proxy servers – since daily monitoring started on 6 June.

The data for the index is collected using automated tests outside of China, as well as inside the country via proxies. Data is also obtained with the help of volunteers who are visiting China this year and have signed up manually test the Internet while they are there.

The CICI index will be running until the end of 2008 – so we will keep you posted with more results.

Register here if you are would like to became a CICI volunteer. Everyone with a website, blog or Facebook profile can get involved by loading up a CICI badge.

China's well known for system of Internet censorship, known as the Great Firewall. Authorities reportedly employ between 30,000 and 50,000 special Internet police who, with the aid of Western-provided technology and Internet service providers, read private emails, conduct surveillance, remove blogs and block banned websites.

At least 50 internet users known to be in jail in China right now, because of their online activities. Among them are Chinese journalists Shi Tao and Huang Jinqiu, pro-democracy activist and writer Yang Tongyan and dissident Wang Xiaoning.