In a major breach of privacy, personal information of individuals in China has been leaked on a large scale. This includes the mobile phone numbers of well-known entrepreneurs such as the “richest person in China,” Zhong Shushu, being sold on online platforms, along with business information from millions of companies, averaging about 2 cents per piece. According to reports from mainland media, one of the major platforms selling personal information of entrepreneurs is called “Lixiaoyun,” with shareholders including Tencent and the Chinese Ministry of Finance.
On May 14th, as reported by the “Daily Economic News,” a platform named “Tanker Lookup” is actively selling personal information of entrepreneurs on a large scale, claiming to cover a “database of over 200 million companies” and “contacts from over 1 billion leads.”
Another major platform selling personal information of entrepreneurs is called “Lixiaoyun,” claiming to cover “over 270 million pieces of business information, over 530 million contacts, and listed on the Shanghai Data Exchange (referred to as the Shanghai Data Exchange).”. Several entrepreneurs’ phone numbers were also found to be on sale on this platform.
Upon verification, it was confirmed that the mobile phone numbers of entrepreneurs such as Zhong Shushu, founder of Nongfu Spring, Qiu Guanghe, founder of Semir Clothing, Li Shuirong, Chairman of Rongsheng Group, Tang Lixin, Chairman of New Fashion Group, Zhang Hongfu, controlling shareholder of Mixue Bingcheng, Lin Sheng, founder of Zhong Xuegao, and Qin Lihong, co-founder of NIO, are indeed owned and used by them.
According to the Hurun Rich List, several of the leaked entrepreneurs (families) have fortunes exceeding hundreds of billions of yuan, including but not limited to Zhong Shushu, founder of Nongfu Spring (450 billion yuan, marking his fourth time as China’s richest person), Li Shuirong of Rongsheng Group (68 billion yuan), Zhang Hongfu of Mixue Bingcheng (28 billion yuan), Tang Lixin, Chairman of New Fashion Group (17 billion yuan), and Qiu Guanghe’s family of Semir Clothing (15.5 billion yuan).
Furthermore, the phone numbers of some other prominent entrepreneurs are also for sale, including Qian Ying, controlling shareholder of Muyuan Stock, Zhou Qunfei, Chairman of Lens Technology, Lin Sheng, founder of Zhong Xuegao, Nie Yunchen, founder of Xicha, and Qin Lihong, co-founder of NIO.
“980 yuan for an annual subscription, can view 5,000 company records per month,” this is the pricing of the Tanker Lookup platform. Calculating based on the maximum query quantity, the selling price for one piece of an entrepreneur’s personal information is only 0.016 yuan. This implies that by subscribing annually, one can query the mobile numbers of entrepreneurs like Zhong Shushu and Li Shuirong for approximately 2 cents each.
The fact that the personal phone numbers of a massive number of entrepreneurs are being sold at an annual rate raises questions about how these private data were obtained by the platforms.
On the Tanker Lookup platform, the phone sources of well-known entrepreneurs like Zhong Shushu of Nongfu Spring were often labeled as “others” or “smart relationships,” with the numbers showing a “first appearance across the network” concentrated around May or July 2023.
The phone source for Qian Ying, controlling shareholder of Muyuan Stock, was rather unique, displayed as from a portal website, with the “first appearance across the network” dated in September 2018. By clicking on the source link of Qian Ying’s number, the webpage redirects to various websites showing Qian Ying’s phone number, consistent with the information displayed on Tanker Lookup.
Moreover, the sellers even engage in direct telemarketing towards potential customers.
“Ranked first in the industry, database listed on the Shanghai Data Exchange.” “Lixiaoyun, in which Tencent Venture Holdings has a stake, specializes in big data customer finding systems plus intelligent outbound calling systems.” “A database of over 270 million company records has been filed with the national authorities.” These were the introductions given by sales personnel during telemarketing for Shanghai Microwen Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as Microwen). The customer acquiring system under Microwen is named Lixiaoyun.
The sales personnel mentioned, “We mainly aim at sales-oriented enterprises, as long as you are in the B-end (corporate user) business, this product will definitely be useful for you. An all-inclusive annual data package costs 16,800 yuan, an intelligent outbound calling robot is priced at 5,000 yuan each, capable of making 1,000 calls a day.”
The business card of a sales representative displayed Tencent’s logo, with a WeChat name specifically labeled “Tencent Lixiaoyun ~ So and So,” although the sales contract template provided did not mention Tencent.
A Tencent official regarding this matter stated: Tencent is a minority shareholder of Lixiaoyun, holding less than 9% of the shares, and does not participate in the daily operations of the company.
The sales representative also mentioned, “The National Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Development Foundation also holds about four-point-something percent of our shares.”
Upon investigation, Microwen’s shareholders include Tencent Industrial Venture Capital Co., Ltd. of Shenzhen (holding 8.98% of the shares) and a private equity fund partnership of Shenzhen National Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Development (holding 4.56% of the shares). The latter is owned 25% by the National Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Development Fund Limited.
Public records indicate that the National Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Development Fund Limited is jointly owned by the Chinese Ministry of Finance, several other ministries including China Tobacco, and state-owned enterprises, with the Finance Ministry as the largest shareholder, holding a 42.66% stake.
Furthermore, the sales representative also provided the “Enterprise Business Panorama Inquiry” data product listing certificate from the Shanghai Data Exchange, information system security level protection filing certificate, and ISO27001 information security management system certification.
How did Lixiaoyun acquire the massive amount of personal information of entrepreneurs?
Regarding the data sources, several sales representatives of Lixiaoyun revealed that they acquire telephone numbers through big data scraping, match them with the legal representatives’ names on business information, collaborate with the three major telecommunications operators (China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom) to obtain real-name information associated with the phone numbers, pay fees to various platforms to purchase information, and utilize “big data + hyperchain analysis” technology to capture and integrate information from various platforms.
However, both China Mobile and China Unicom have denied selling users’ personal information.
Lawyer Gao Fei from the Shanghai Baigu Law Firm stated that the massive collection and sale of entrepreneurs’ phone numbers by these platforms violate the Personal Information Protection Law and may constitute the crime of infringing on citizens’ personal information. Additionally, if there are cases of “database collision,” it could also amount to the crime of damaging computer information systems.