The reporter has already reported the leakage incident to the police station.
Shenzhen Evening Post reporter Jianjie/Text Dingkai/Pictures
Last week, the owner information of Phu Hoa Court in Futian District was leaked online. When this document was just deleted from the website at the request of the owners, some owners found their addresses and phone numbers appeared in another online document named "Shenzhen 2010 Latest 8000 Owners' Mobile Phones." This owner information covered dozens of residential areas in Shenzhen. Before the deadline last night, the reporter had already reported the owner information leakage incident to Jingtian Police Station. The police station indicated that they would transfer the case to the cyber police team for further investigation into the person who leaked the information and gradually contact the affected owners in the document.
Playback: Phu Hoa Court Owner Information Leakage
On the morning of November 30, an owner of Phu Hoa Court in Futian District accidentally discovered a 144-page document online containing the owner information of Phu Hoa Court's phases 1-4. The document included the names, mobile phone numbers, bank card numbers, and room numbers of more than 2600 owners of Phu Hoa Court. This document was uploaded online on November 16 this year, downloaded 16 times, and viewed 87 times.
After the Phu Hoa Court Owners' Committee learned about this news, they immediately asked the management office to verify whether the owner information had been leaked. However, the management office stated that they did not leak the owner information and pointed out that there was a column labeled "User Number" in this document, which the management office did not assign to the owners. Some owners believed, based on details such as the "Phu Hoa Court Whole Transfer User List" marked at the top of the document and the note "Non-digital users, normal charges effective," that it might be the Tianwei Vision company that leaked the information. However, the customer service personnel of Tianwei Vision indicated that the user number in the document did not match the user name and bank account, so they could not confirm that the document belonged to Tianwei Vision.
Subsequently, the owners of Phu Hoa Court called Baidu Company, requesting them to quickly remove the "Owner Information" document from Baidu Wenku. By the afternoon of that day, the document could no longer be found on the website.
The Phu Hoa Court Owners' Committee also reported the case to the police station. Chairman He Gang and the secretary of the Owners' Committee went to Lianhua Police Station to make a statement and provided screenshots of the web pages from that day. Chairman He also expressed that he would sue the publisher and collector of the information on behalf of the Owners' Committee to claim damages.
Current Status: Leakage of 8000 Owners' Information Again
While the Phu Hoa Court owner information leakage incident was still making waves, another reader called our newspaper, indicating that another document named "Shenzhen 2010 Latest 8000 Owners' Mobile Phones" had appeared on Baidu Wenku. The reporter immediately searched for the file name on Baidu Wenku, and a 144-page document appeared before their eyes. The document involved the names, addresses, and mobile phone numbers of 8000 owners across dozens of residential areas in Shenzhen. In the document, the reporter saw that the owner information of large residential areas like Yuanling New Village in Futian, Shangmeilin New Village, Hubei New Village in Luohu, and Shuiku New Village were also included.
The upload time of this document was November 17, 2010. It only required 10 points to download the document. Before the reporter's deadline, the document had been downloaded 130 times and viewed 1286 times. The user who uploaded the document was "bd7012". Besides uploading the "Shenzhen 2010 Latest 8000 Owners' Mobile Phones" document, he also uploaded another document named "Latest Mobile Phones of 800 Enterprise Bosses in Shenzhen," which had been downloaded 25 times. This document was 30 pages long and contained the company name, contact person name, fixed telephone, and mobile phone information.
In the help center of Baidu Wenku, the reporter saw, "The content on Baidu Wenku is entirely uploaded by users, and Baidu does not edit or modify it. Users of Baidu Wenku must not infringe upon others' intellectual property rights, including copyrights, or other rights. Once legal disputes arise due to documents uploaded by users or if any third party's legitimate rights are infringed upon, the responsibility lies with the user. If this causes any loss to Baidu or any third party, the user is responsible for full compensation."
Owners:
Hope for Immediate Remedial Measures
The reporter randomly dialed a few phone numbers in the document, and Ms. Xie from Fumin New Village answered the call. After verifying her name and address with Ms. Xie, it was found that the information in the document was correct. Ms. Xie was very surprised: "Although I knew my information could be leaked in many situations, I never expected someone would upload my information online for anyone to download! Is there a way to delete the document online? Can we find out who did it?" Ms. Xie believed that the website did not fulfill its duty to review and approve the upload of personal information documents of owners, and thus bore inescapable responsibility for this incident.
Another owner, Mr. Huang from Nanyuan New Village in Nanshan, was also very concerned about remedial measures. "Although I no longer live in Nanyuan New Village and have rented out the house, I still frequently receive calls from real estate agents asking about selling the house." Mr. Huang indicated that if the information leakage did not cause him significant losses, deleting the online data would suffice. "Online data spreads very quickly, so it will be difficult to trace the source of the upload."
Police:
Arbitrary Release of Others' Information is an Illegal Act
Before the deadline at 9 PM last night, the reporter came to Jingtian Police Station to inform the police of this incident. Officer Zheng, who was responsible for taking the statement, told the reporter that since the reporter was not the victim of the case, although they reported the incident to the police station, filing a case still required the victims to report the case to the police station. Due to the wide coverage of this document, it needed to be transferred to the cyber police team to first seal the owner information document and contact the Baidu website to further investigate the person who leaked the information. The police station would also try to contact the affected owners in the document, and the affected owners could sue the person who leaked the information or the website in court.
In addition, the Futian Public Security Bureau indicated that the investigation into the leakage of Phu Hoa Court owner information was ongoing, and the public security authorities reminded residents to pay attention to protecting their personal information and warned those who arbitrarily release others' information that their actions were illegal.
Lawyer:
Pursue Responsibility of Publisher and Website
Mr. Pan Xiang, a lawyer from Guangdong Zhong'an Law Firm, stated that personal information being sold as commodities disrupted citizens' lives and work, and lawbreakers took advantage of the situation to profit. Last February, the "Criminal Law Amendment (Seven)" established the crime of leaking citizens' personal information, stipulating that staff members of state organs or financial, telecommunications, transportation, education, medical institutions, etc., who violate national regulations and sell or illegally provide citizens' personal information obtained during their duties or services to others, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of less than three years or criminal detention, and may also or alternatively be fined if the circumstances are serious. Those who steal or illegally obtain the aforementioned information through other means, and whose circumstances are serious, shall be punished according to the above provisions.
Mr. Pan Xiang believed that according to the "Tort Liability Law" implemented on July 1 this year, network users and network service providers who use the network to infringe upon the civil rights and interests of others shall bear tort liability. Network users who use network services to commit tortious acts, the aggrieved parties have the right to notify the network service provider to take necessary measures such as deletion, shielding, or disconnection of links. If the network service provider fails to take necessary measures promptly after receiving notification, they shall bear joint liability for the expanded part of the damage with the network user. If the network service provider knows that the network user uses its network service to infringe upon the civil rights and interests of others but fails to take necessary measures, they shall bear joint liability with the network user. "Therefore, Baidu website has the obligation to review the owner information materials uploaded by users, refuse to publish and promptly delete personal information involving citizen privacy, otherwise, they should bear joint tort liability."
Mr. Pan Xiang also introduced that since many acts of leaking citizens' personal information have not yet caused serious consequences and do not reach the level of serious circumstances specified in the Criminal Law, it is difficult to pursue criminal responsibility. China is currently formulating the "Personal Information Protection Law," a specialized law aimed at protecting citizens' personal information, which can better and more comprehensively protect citizens' personal information from both civil and administrative perspectives.