Ke Jiayun provides more details on part of a recent crackdown and arrests for sale of personal information. Here’s an example of how the data were misused to scam people:
A suspected information seller, surnamed Li, was held in Anxi County in Fujian Province over a telecom scam operation.
Parents in Songjiang District told police they received calls claiming to be from teachers or medical workers who said their children were suffering from gastric problems and urging them make a bank transfer to cover medical fees.
The callers could always tell the parents the correct details of their children, police said.
The scam netted more than 600,000 yuan (US$97,920) from frantic parents.
Shanghai police held the alleged scammers in Xiamen City with the help of local police. The four said they bought information on the students from Li.
When police raided Li’s house, they found more than 5 million pieces of personal information on his computer — including 162,081 pieces of information on students and parents in Shanghai.
Read more on Shanghai Daily
So where and how did Li purchase the information that he allegedly sold to the scammers – from the schools or from a government agency or….? There’s much we don’t know yet about this case.