Illegal acquisition of vehicle location: the first case in the country is sentenced!
Compiled from: Jiangsu News
On March 24, the nation's first full-chain crackdown on the "illegal acquisition of citizens' vehicle location information" case was publicly tried and immediately sentenced at the Gulou District People's Court in Nanjing.
Case review
From June 2020, defendants Huang Mou-lun and Li Mou, knowing that others were engaged in illegal vehicle tracking, created and provided programs such as "JTC" and profited from them.
Operators of illegal vehicle tracking businesses used the "JTC" and other programs provided by the two defendants to bypass the security mechanisms of certain parking platform systems, illegally obtaining vehicle parking location information, or installing GPS devices under vehicles or in other locations as per client requests to illegally track vehicle movements. Defendant Huang Mou-lun accepted a commission from a vehicle tracking operator to install a GPS device on a designated vehicle.
Statistics show that by the time of their arrest in May 2022, Huang Mou-lun had illegally profited over 1.13 million yuan, and Li Mou had illegally profited over 240,000 yuan.
The Nanjing Gulou District People's Court held that parking information and vehicle movement trajectories, which reflect the living and working activities of specific individuals, constitute citizens' personal information and are protected by law. The two defendants, knowing that others were illegally obtaining citizens' vehicle location information for profit, still created software programs for others to use, with particularly serious circumstances. Additionally, Huang Mou-lun participated in downstream crimes such as installing GPS on designated vehicles. Their actions constituted the crime of infringing on citizens' personal information.
The court rendered its verdict in court. Defendants Huang Mou-lun and Li Mou were sentenced to four years and eleven months, and three years and three months in prison, respectively, for the crime of infringing on citizens' personal information.
"Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China"
Article 253-1: [Crime of Infringing on Citizens' Personal Information]
Whoever, in violation of relevant state regulations, sells or provides citizens' personal information to others, if the circumstances are serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention, and shall also, or shall only, be fined; if the circumstances are especially serious, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years, and shall also be fined.
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
Citizens' personal information is related to the daily conduct of each individual's life and the maintenance of a normal living state, not only concerning personal reputation but also affecting social evaluation. The destruction or infringement of citizens' personal information may cause both material losses and mental harm to citizens, and affect the realization of their rights in social and economic life as well as social and political life.
The particularity of this case lies in the fact that the defendant trafficked not common personal information but vehicle driving information, which undoubtedly also falls under personal information. In today's increasingly advanced technology, although our lives are becoming more convenient, many rights are being infringed upon unconsciously. Therefore, in daily life, one should pay attention to protecting one's privacy. Once there is a risk of leakage, do not be indifferent, otherwise, significant losses may be suffered.
