Sales of personal data skyrocket

SHANGHAI: When William Zhang’s car insurance was about to expire in March, he did not need to look far for renewal options.

In the two months before the policy was up Zhang received calls almost daily from insurers trying to sell him a new one.

Since his initial policy was from Ping An Insurance Group, it was natural the company had been in touch.

“What confuses me is how other insurance companies knew about it,” said Zhang, a 26-year-old government employee from Shandong.

Three other car owners said that they experienced the same problem.

Personal data has become widely available in China and can be scooped up for pennies by insurance companies, banks, loan sharks, and scammers alike, according to sellers and financiers interviewed by Reuters.

In May, China introduced its most comprehensive data protection laws to date, tightening restrictions on the sharing of private data held by financial institutions and other firms.

“Personal information leaks are risky,” said Susan Ning, a partner at the law firm King & Wood Mallesons in Beijing.

“Such information can facilitate other crimes,” she added.

Insurers often buy numbers from shadowy online data sellers, who themselves have acquired the information illegally, according to people in the industry.

Some companies illegally buy information from the department of motor vehicles, car licensing authorities, car sellers, or from police stations, said Michelle Hu, a partner at Bain & Co who has been a consultant on insurance deals.

By entering keywords like “personal data” or ‘cellphone data”, in Chinese, Reuters found more than 30 groups created for the purpose of selling and buying personal information on Tencent’s instant messaging service QQ and Baidu Inc’s forum site Tieba.

— AP Selling out: In China, a proliferation of online financial platforms and users has led to a surge in the sharing of personal data, despite legislative efforts to protect consumers in recent years, experts say.