(ECNS) -- More than 162 million personal information items were leaked in the past six years, with courier companies, educational institutes and online stores the major sources, reported Beijing Youth Daily.
From 2013 to 2016, courts in Beijing handled 67 cases involving illegal sale or supply of personal information. Those cases that happened from 2010 to 2016 were found to involve the sale of a single piece of information at prices of up to 6 yuan (90 cents).
In one case, more then 130 million items of personal information were found stored on a hard drive.
A study shows that many people took advantage of their office positions to steal saved personal information and sell it online.
In a case heard by a court in Beijing's Haidian District, six people made a profit by selling 2 million items of information on students and parents.
One offender surnamed Yang said he worked at three educational organizations were he accessed information, including names of students, their parents, contact details and home addresses.
Yang was paid 10,000 yuan for the information.
In a case handled by a court in Daxing District, a hacker was found to have broken into education and human resources databases to steal information.
The study also shows companies or individuals working in healthcare, insurance, personal financing and real estate are the major buyers of illegally acquired personal data.
Recent amendments to the criminal law adds several provisions related to data privacy and cyber security. But they have failed to deter phone fraud.
An 18-year-old student who was just admitted into university in eastern China died after she was swindled out of her family's tuition savings. A professor at Tsinghua University was cheated out of 17.6 million yuan in a case that shocked the nation.
