According to the China News Service, the bill requires Xinjiang's internet service providers and network operators to strengthen monitoring systems to report anyone using the internet in any way that compromises national security, damages national and social interests, undermines ethnic unity, incites ethnic separatism or harms social stability.
The bill, which did not specify what punishment the offenders would face, comes in the wake of the July 5 riots in the region's capital Urumqi, in which 197 people were killed and more than 1,700 injured.
Members of the ethnic Uighur minority went on a rampage in attacks directed mainly at members of China's dominant Han ethnic group, following the killing of several Uighurs in Shanghai.
The local government said that the internet and text messages were used by terrorists, separatists and religious extremists to spread rumours and hatred, which fuelled the violence in Urumqi.
Amid the attacks, authorities cut off the region's internet access and disabled text messages, restricting the flow of information going in and out of Xinjiang in an attempt to stem the violence.
Several media sites and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are already blocked in China.
Search engines in the country including Google are also not allowed to display results for politically sensitive subjects, such as Tiananmen Square, Tibet, democracy, and Falun Gong.
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