Researcher says China has breeding database

A security researcher claims to have uncovered a database in China that is believed to list whether females as young as 15 have the potential to breed.

Victor Gevers, a Dutch researcher at non-profit organisation GDI.Foundation, claims to have uncovered the database in China that publicly lists the personal information of more than 1.8 million women, making available sensitive data such as their phone numbers, home addresses and “BreedReady” status.

Gevers said the cache holding personal details of the Chinese citizens is “unprotected”.

In screenshots posted to Twitter by Gevers, the open database is seen to contain extensive categories of data about the women, including their age, identity card digits, birthday, marital status and “BreedyReady” status, which is thought to refer to whether a woman has a child or has the potential to breed.

Gevers found the youngest girl on the database to be aged 15, with 32 the average age of people listed. Around 82 per cent of the women appear to be located in Beijing.

“In China, they have a shortage of women. So an organisation started to build a database to start registering over 1.8 million women with all kinds of details like phone numbers, addresses, education, location, ID number, marital status and a ‘BreedReady’ status?” he said on Twitter.

China has more than 29,000 open databases, according to specialist search engine ZoomEye, and the personal data being so readily available raises concerns about the security of open databases in the country.

It is unclear what the purpose of the database would be, but evidence suggests that Chinese authorities are growing increasingly concerned about a drop in birth rates in the country. Some firms in the country have started giving women “dating leave” to encourage marriage.

The database has been unreachable since on Monday.