Illegal Leakage of ID Photos, Black Industry Chain Makes a Fortune Overnight
Compiled from: China Police Net
Case review
During a cyber patrol, police officers in Ouhai, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, discovered that a photo of a Wenzhou girl surnamed Li holding her ID document had fallen into the hands of criminals and was used to register an account on an overseas shopping website. It turned out that when Li was working a part-time job, an intermediary claimed that she could earn 50 yuan simply by downloading and registering on a financial app. However, she was required to take several photos holding her ID card and a newspaper dated that day.
The police quickly traced the source of the leaked information to Nan'an, Fujian, and arrested the suspects Lin Moufeng and Lin Moujun. More than 20,000 photos of citizens holding their ID cards were seized on the computers used in the operation. The two confessed that they profited by selling accounts for overseas shopping platforms. Since 2016, they had purchased a large number of photos of citizens holding their ID cards from "upstream" sources Ma and You, and had commissioned Zhao to Photoshop fake business licenses.
The seized accounts are further divided into two types: personal and corporate. To register a personal account, one must gather the “four-piece set,” namely a personal “photo holding a newspaper,” a “photo holding a blank sheet of paper,” and “photos holding the front and back of an ID card.” To register a corporate account, a business license must be added on top of the “four-piece set.” A set of such holding photos that costs 80 to 100 yuan can be sold for five to six hundred yuan once registered as an account on an overseas shopping website, while corporate accounts can fetch up to 1,200 yuan.
From collecting photos of citizens holding ID cards and forging fake business licenses to selling registered accounts online, a complete black-market chain for illegally trading personal information has gradually emerged.
"Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China"
Article 253-1: [Crime of Infringing on Citizens' Personal Information]
Violating relevant state regulations by selling or providing citizens' personal information to others, if the circumstances are serious, shall be punishable by up to three years in prison or criminal detention, and/or a fine; if the circumstances are particularly serious, the penalty shall be three to seven years in prison, along with a fine.
Whoever, in violation of relevant state regulations, sells or provides citizens' personal information obtained during the performance of duties or provision of services to others shall be given a heavier punishment in accordance with the provisions of the preceding paragraph.
Whoever steals or otherwise illegally obtains citizens' personal information shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the first paragraph.
Where a unit commits any of the crimes mentioned in the preceding three paragraphs, a fine shall be imposed on the unit, and the directly responsible person in charge and other directly responsible personnel shall be punished in accordance with the provisions of the respective paragraphs.
[1] The author's perspective
It is understood that criminals currently obtain photos of individuals holding their ID documents primarily through two methods: first, "black intermediaries" who, under the guise of recruitment or registration on third-party platforms, extract or purchase information from part-time workers; second, user information leaked from unregulated financial websites. After obtaining these photos, criminals often resell them to overseas shopping websites or fraud syndicates. These buyers then conduct "data collision" by cross-referencing the photos with other personal information, enabling them to create tailored marketing or fraud schemes for each individual, even down to specifics such as age, family, income, and hobbies. This approach significantly increases the likelihood of victims being defrauded.
But today's online big data is incredibly interconnected. Just after registering an account on one platform, another platform sends you a text message. This shows that personal information leaks have become very serious. Unfortunately, while we don't want our personal information to be leaked, we have no choice but to agree to these unfair terms. Fortunately, our country keeps pace with the times, and the Personal Information Protection Law will take effect on November 1 this year. Although the law provides protection, we still cannot let our guard down, because photos of us holding our identification documents can be used in many scenarios, and criminals may even use our identities to commit crimes.
We remind you to be cautious about submitting personal information and ID photos in daily life, to check whether a platform is trustworthy, and preferably to add a note such as “for xx use only” when submitting ID photos. Once you discover abnormalities in your credit reporting system or other records, you must call the police as soon as possible, stop losses in a timely manner, and actively assist the police in apprehending criminals as quickly as possible. This not only helps protect your personal and property safety, but also effectively curbs social disorder.
