"Do you want to arrange for you to take pictures of your baby for free?" "The early education class is free to try, do you want to sign up?" As soon as the newborn is born, all kinds of sales calls come uninvited, and the other party can accurately tell the information of the child and the parents. Once you let your guard down and agree to their visit, the so-called gift is likely to become a costly fee. In fact, there is a black industry chain behind this that illegally buys, sells and uses the personal information of newborns.
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More than 30,000 pieces of newborn information were resold to reveal the details of the case
The Hangzhou Internet Court heard a civil public interest lawsuit on the protection of personal information, which involved more than 30,000 pieces of personal information of newborns. So how did the information of these newborns get to each other?
In May 2021, just a few days after giving birth to Ms. Ye, who lives in Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou, she received a sales call from a photography company, claiming that she could take pictures of her newborn for free and provide door-to-door services.
After the photo was taken, the staff introduced to Ms. Ye that the 3 free photos promised before did not include negatives and retouching, and if you want, you need to charge an additional fee. Considering that the other party had already taken photos at home, and she did have this need, Ms. Ye still chose the photo package provided by this photography company, with a total value of more than 5,000 yuan.
Although she had doubts about how the photography company obtained her and her children's personal information, Ms. Ye felt that this kind of thing often happened in daily life, so she did not further investigate and defend her rights.
In May 2022, the Hangzhou police received clues about the case transferred by the Jiangsu police, and a photography agency in Xiaoshan District was suspected of purchasing and using the personal information of newborns.
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Monetize and sell your newborn's personal information to a photography agency
During the investigation, the procuratorate found that from the second half of 2020 to February 2022, Li purchased more than 30,000 pieces of newborn personal information through illegal channels, involving Shandong, Zhejiang, Anhui and other places. In this case, some of the personal information of newborns in Hangzhou was sold by Li to two local photography agencies that needed to expand their customer base, and Li illegally profited more than 290,000 yuan.
According to the investigation of the procuratorate, Li was originally engaged in the children's photography industry for a long time in Beijing, and in 2020, he obtained a batch of newborn personal information in the social group of the same industry, and in order to monetize these personal information, he began to look for buyers to sell.
I made a special trip to a different place to meet with the buyer offline
After finding the intended buyer in Hangzhou, Li specially came from Beijing to meet the buyer offline, and in order to dispel the buyer's concerns, Li will also provide some of the personal information of the local newborn to verify the authenticity.
The two companies purchase the personal information of newborns in order to expand the customer base
According to the procuratorate's understanding, the specific content of the personal information of these newborns includes the date of birth, gender, names and contact information of the newborns. In order to expand the source of customers, a photography company and a creative company in Hangzhou successively purchased and used the above-mentioned personal information from Li, and Li illegally profited more than 290,000 yuan from it.
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Continue to pursue civil liability, and the procuratorate initiates public interest litigation
Buying and selling more than 30,000 pieces of personal information, Li was sentenced to two years and ten months in prison and fined 300,000 yuan for "infringing on citizens' personal information", and he is currently serving his sentence. Two photography agencies were also held accountable. After that, the People's Procuratorate of Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou City, filed a public interest lawsuit, suing Li and the two businesses for civil tort liability.
The three defendants shall bear the corresponding civil liability
The court held that the personal information of the newborn involved in this case included the date of birth, gender, name and contact information of the parents, etc., which was sufficient to identify the specific newborn and its parents, and belonged to the personal information of citizens protected by the Civil Code.
The three defendants, for the purpose of making profits, illegally bought and sold and used the relevant personal information of specific groups of people without the consent of the individuals, which not only harmed the rights and interests of the relevant subjects in the personal information of citizens, disrupted the peace of life of newborns and their parents, but also infringed on the social and public interests in the field of public information security, so the three defendants should bear corresponding civil liability.
The court ordered a public apology and paid more than 290,000 yuan in public welfare compensation
On April 16, the Hangzhou Internet Court ordered Li and three other defendants to publicly apologize in the national media and pay more than 290,000 yuan in public interest damages. The above-mentioned public interest damages are used for public interest matters such as the protection of personal information or the protection of the rights and interests of women and children.
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Public Interest Litigation Builds a "Firewall" for Personal Information Protection
In cases of infringement of personal information, it is relatively difficult for victims to protect their rights due to limitations such as professionalism and ability to present evidence. By including personal information protection in the scope of procuratorial public interest litigation, the law not only promotes the better resolution of practical problems, but also helps to improve the level of public security governance.
It is understood that the Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, which came into effect on November 1, 2021, clearly includes personal information protection in the statutory field of public interest litigation, and makes clear provisions on the filing of public interest litigation on personal information protection by procuratorates and other organizations.
Through public interest litigation, the Hangzhou Xiaoshan Procuratorate demanded that the three defendants who infringed on citizens' personal information apologize to the public, and repair the damaged social and public interests in the field of personal information and the protection of women and children in the form of public interest damages, providing judicial support for the formation of a personal information protection ecology in which the government, enterprises, relevant social organizations, and the public participate together.
According to the reporter's understanding, the national procuratorate aims at the frequent occurrence of telecommunications network fraud, focusing on the protection of sensitive personal information such as biometrics, medical health, financial accounts, and whereabouts, and will file and handle more than 6,600 public interest litigation cases in the field of personal information protection and anti-telecom network fraud in 2023.
Judge Zhao Xi of the First Division of the Internet Trial of the Hangzhou Internet Court: In fact, we also hope to make judicial decisions guided by judgments, and first improve the legal awareness of the people from the source, we must know that our citizens' personal information is protected by law, and we cannot obtain, buy, sell, operate, or process citizens' personal information by any illegal means. From the source of the information, prevent the information from flowing to the black market and being resold.
(Source: CCTV News Client, CCTV Reporter Zhang Gang, Ni Zheng, Xiaoshantai, The copyright belongs to the original author, if there is any infringement, please contact to delete (21))