In a modern society with a developed network, personal information has become a commodity that can be bought and sold. In fact, many people's mobile phones have received spam messages and harassed calls, and some people have been inexplicably processed credit cards and were overdrafted and owed money, thereby being sued by the bank. As the leakage of personal information becomes more and more rampant, how to prevent the leakage of personal information becomes particularly important.
Cases of personal information leakage
On May 13, 2019, Uniqlo’s parent company, Japan’s Fast Retailing Group, issued an announcement saying that from April 23, 2019 to May 10, 2019, its Japanese online shopping site was hacked and hackers were “unauthorized”. In the case of 461,100 logins, this means that more than 460,000 customers' information may have been leaked. The information contained in these accounts includes the customer's name, address, phone number, email, birthday, recipient address, and some credit card information.
In recent years, Japan's Fast Retailing Group is not the only company whose user information has been leaked. The following companies also face this problem. If the leaked user information is used by those who are interested, they will be harassed, scammed, and consumed.
Facebook leaked 87 million user information;
Fitness application MyFitnessPal leaked 150 million user information;
MyHeritage, a family genetic testing website, leaked 92 million user information, which even includes the user's DNA test results;
Many hotel chains under Huazhu leaked 240 million pieces of user data;
Marriott International leaked 500 million user information.
Related Laws
According to one of Article 253 of the Criminal Law [crime of infringement of citizens’ personal information], in violation of relevant state regulations, selling or providing citizens’ personal information to others. Single fine; if the circumstances are particularly serious, it shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of more than three years and less than seven years, and fines.
Anyone who violates relevant state regulations and sells or provides citizens’ personal information obtained in the course of performing duties or providing services shall be given a heavier punishment in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.
Whoever steals or otherwise illegally acquires personal information of citizens shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the first paragraph. If the unit commits the crimes in the first three paragraphs, the unit shall be fined, and the person in charge and other persons directly responsible for the unit shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of that paragraph.
(This picture comes from the alpha system database)
How to protect personal information
1. Beware of phishing websites when shopping online;
2. Properly dispose of documents containing personal information such as express orders and tickets;
3. The copy of the ID card should indicate the purpose;
4. Online resume only provides necessary information;
5. Do not disclose personal information in Weibo or group chat;
6. Do not add unidentified friends on WeChat;
7. Carefully participate in online survey activities;
8. Free WiFi is easy to leak privacy, use with caution;
9. Handle old phones and computers carefully.
Author: Chang Wen
Reviewer: Xu Meigui
Typography: Qiusimian
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