An agency of the Ministry of Public Security detected websites set up specifically to trade in personal information of both individuals and organisations.
A website owner caught trading in personal information
The agency, dubbed A87, made a statement recently, that the information being sold included home and mobile phone numbers, home addresses, email addresses. Even the information of high profile people, such as directors, CEOs and other senior employees of large companies, as well as that of registration info culled from golf clubs.
Privacy violated
In early January 2012, the agency busted some businesses allegedly taking part in this type of trade, such as www.danhsachkhachhang.com and www.duonghongle.com.
Dnhsachkhachhang.com offers a directory of 9,700 directors in HCM City, 400 members of gold clubs in Hanoi, 1,200 chairmen of boards of directors in HCM City and 6,100 senior managers in HCM City. Information about enterprises operating in the fields of banking, insurance and tourism attracted the most demand.
The agency found that these two websites were set up by one individual in October 2010. He bought all the information from two people at a price of VND20 million (USD950.7). He then classified it into different groups so his customers could easily find what they wanted.
With the cooperation of the sites' owner, police were able to track down two similar businesses, www.timkhachhang.com and www.datavip24h.com. One of these owners said he worked for a securities company, making it easy for him to gather the personal information of his 600 or so co-workers. In 2010, he used classified ads to gather information about directors in the southern province of Binh Duong, including 30,000 Mobifone subscribers, 65,000 Viettel mobile subscribers and offered for sales at www.dataviph24.com and www.datavip24h.net.
Penalties
All the three websites owners have admitted to making profits of a combined VND250 million (USD11,884) by now, but claimed to be unaware of breaking any law.
According to the agency, these website owners have violated regulations on personal privacy. They are investigating further before coming to a decision on the appropriate penalties to these offenders, although the fines may range from VND30-VND50 million (USD1,426-USD2,376) each.
“Depending on the level of their violations, offenders may face administrative punishments or be subjected to criminal proceedings,” the agency added.
