Dark secret of delivery services: Your info is at risk!

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As China's delivery services expand with the rising trend of e-commerce, problems in the industry are also bubbling to the surface. Personal information has been traded like an asset in China in exchange for money.

Consumers depend on their phones more than ever, particularly for shopping, all done cashless. Items purchased online are delivered to front doors, and consumer information related to each acquisition is made available to delivery companies.

Are these companies protecting online shoppers?

Market to trade user data

A whole market exists on both supply and demand of users' information, and the payoff is cash.

A Jingzhou police officer checks properties used by criminals. /Beijing News Photo

Beijing News reported a typical case, in which one person's information was sold for two yuan (three US cents). Four-thousand pieces of data made Wang Yuanyuan, a storage keeper at a delivery service, 8,000 yuan (1,200 US dollars) in a month.

Wang was paid by someone from the same company, Xiaohe, who did not have the information access.

Xiaohe, a false name, served as one intermediary in the data market. The information ends in different people's hands, and can even become a tool for telecommunications fraud.

Wang's husband told the Beijing News that she hesitated in the beginning, but went ahead after Xiaohe said the sale was not illegal.

Xiaohe, a fake name used by Beijing News. /Beijing News Photo

It turned out Xiaohe is a delivery man working in the same company as Wang. Xiaohe told Beijing News he asked different colleagues from different provinces in China to sell him data, with the majority of the people he contacted rejecting his requests.

He revealed that he normally paid his original source of information two yuan per piece, but then sold it on for four yuan.

"The fresher the information, the more expensive the price," he told the Beijing News.

"If the user's information is from three to five days away since the package was sent, it is the most popular. If the information is more than half-a-month-old, no one wants it because the information might have been used by someone already, and it's not worth that much money."

Wang and Xiaohe were punished with 10-month and two-year jail sentences respectively, according to the Beijing News.

Protecting personal information

Chinese police caught over 4,200 suspects for theft of personal information in 2016, with over 1,800 cases solved, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

Xu Yuyu, a high school graduate in Linyi of east China's Shandong Province, died of cardiac arrest in August 2016 after losing 9,900 yuan (1,440 US dollars) of her university tuition fees to telecom fraudsters.

The case aroused shock and anger among Chinese people, drawing attention to the protection of personal information.

China's Cybersecurity Law. /CFP Photo

China adopted a Cybersecurity Law to safeguard sovereignty in cyberspace, national security and the rights of citizens in November 2016. The law, which took effect on June 1, bans online service providers from collecting and selling users' personal information.

The law states that those who violate the provisions and infringe on personal information will face hefty fines. It also makes it clear that the Internet must not be used to conduct fraud or sell prohibited goods.