Details of the case exposed, more than 30,000 pieces of newborn information were resold

"Free door-to-door photography of the baby, do you want to help you arrange it?" "Free trial of early education classes, do you want to sign up?" As soon as a newborn is born, all kinds of sales calls come uninvited, and the other person can accurately tell the name of the child and Parental information. Once you relax your vigilance and allow them to come to your door, the so-called gift is likely to turn into an expensive charge. In fact, there is a black industry chain behind this that illegally buys, sells and uses newborns’ personal information.

The Hangzhou Internet Court heard a personal information protection civil public interest litigation case involving more than 30,000 pieces of personal information about newborns. So how did the other party obtain the information about these newborns?

In May 2021, just a few days after Ms. Ye, who lives in Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou, gave birth to her baby, she received a sales call from a photography company. The other party claimed that she could take photos of newborns for free and provide door-to-door services.

After the photo shoot, the staff introduced to Ms. Ye that the three free photos promised before did not include negatives and retouching. If you want them, you will need to pay extra. Considering that the other party had already taken photos at home, and she indeed had this need, Ms. Ye chose the photo package provided by this photography company, with a total value of more than 5,000 yuan.

Although she initially had doubts about how the photography company obtained her and her children's personal information, Ms. Ye felt that this kind of thing happened often in daily life, so she did not pursue further investigation and protect her rights.

In May 2022, the Hangzhou police received a case clue transferred from the Jiangsu police. A photography agency in Xiaoshan District was suspected of purchasing and using the personal information of newborns. The Xiaoshan police attached great importance to this and launched an investigation, and soon caught the illegal sale of newborns. Li, who purchased the newborn’s information, and the heads of two photography agencies that purchased the newborn’s information, including the photography company that provided photography services for Ms. Ye’s child. The case was subsequently transferred to the Xiaoshan District People’s Procuratorate of Hangzhou for review and prosecution.

During the investigation, the procuratorial organ found that from the second half of 2020 to February 2022, Li purchased more than 30,000 pieces of personal information about newborns through illegal channels, involving Shandong, Zhejiang, Anhui and other places. In this case, some personal information of newborns in the Hangzhou area was sold by Mr. Li to two local photography agencies that needed to expand their customer base. Mr. Li made an illegal profit of more than 290,000 yuan.

According to the procuratorial investigation, Li was originally engaged in the children's photography industry in Beijing for a long time. In 2020, he obtained a batch of personal information of newborn babies in a social group in the same industry. In order to monetize this personal information, he began to look for buyers to sell.

After finding the intended buyer in Hangzhou, Li came all the way from Beijing to meet the buyer offline. In order to dispel the buyer's concerns, Li also provided some local newborn personal information to verify the authenticity.

Two companies purchased personal information of newborns to expand customer base

According to the prosecutor's office, the specific content of the newborn's personal information includes the newborn's date of birth, gender, parents' names and contact information. In order to expand their customer base, a photography company and a creative company in Hangzhou purchased and used the above-mentioned personal information from Li, and Li illegally made more than 290,000 yuan from it.

After buying and selling more than 30,000 pieces of personal information, Li was sentenced by the court to two years and ten months in prison and fined 300,000 yuan for the crime of "infringement of citizens' personal information." He is currently serving his sentence. Two photography agencies were also held accountable. Afterwards, the People's Procuratorate of Xiaoshan District, Hangzhou filed a public interest lawsuit against Li and two merchants for civil infringement liability.

The three defendants should bear corresponding civil liability

The court held that the personal information of the newborn involved in this case included the date of birth, gender, parents’ names and contact information, which was sufficient to identify the specific newborn and his parents, and was a citizen’s personal information protected by the Civil Code.

For the purpose of profit, the three defendants illegally bought, sold and used the relevant personal information of specific groups of people without obtaining individual consent. This not only harmed the citizens’ personal information rights and interests of the relevant subjects, disrupted the peace of life of newborns and their parents, but also It infringed upon social and public interests in the field of public information security, so the three defendants should bear corresponding civil liability.

Ordered to publicly apologize and pay 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 national media and pay more than 290,000 yuan in public welfare damages. The above-mentioned public welfare damage compensation is used for public welfare matters such as personal information protection or the protection of the rights and interests of women and children.

Public interest litigation builds a “firewall” for personal information protection

In cases of personal information infringement, it is relatively difficult for victims to defend their rights due to limitations such as professionalism and ability to provide evidence. By incorporating the protection of personal information into the scope of procuratorial public interest litigation, the law not only promotes better solutions to practical problems, but also helps improve the level of public security governance.

It is understood that the "Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China", which will be implemented on November 1, 2021, clearly includes the protection of personal information in the statutory field of public interest litigation, and makes clear provisions for procuratorial organs and other organizations to initiate public interest litigation on personal information protection.

Through public interest litigation, the Hangzhou Xiaoshan Procuratorate required the three defendants who infringed on citizens' personal information to apologize to the public, and to repair the damaged social public interests in the field of personal information and the protection of women and children in the form of public damage compensation, in order to help Promoting the formation of a personal information protection ecology in which governments, enterprises, relevant social organizations, and the public jointly participate provides judicial support.

According to the reporter's understanding, procuratorial organs across the country have targeted the frequent occurrence of telecommunications network fraud and have focused on the protection of sensitive personal information such as biometrics, medical and health, financial account numbers, and whereabouts. In 2023, a total of 11 cases have been filed for public welfare in the fields of personal information protection and anti-telecom network fraud. There are more than 6,600 litigation cases.

Zhao Xi, Judge of the First Internet Trial Division of the Hangzhou Internet Court: When we make judicial decisions, we actually hope to be judgment-oriented 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 cannot be To obtain, buy, sell, operate, and process citizens' personal information by any illegal means, on the premise of increasing awareness, all agencies, groups, and network platforms must also build their own fences and collect information from the source. Prevent this information from being resold on the illegal market.