Property sales are found with most violations of consumers' personal info

Market regulation authorities across China handled nearly 1,500 cases of legal violations involving the infringement of consumers' personal information during a half-year special law enforcement campaign, according to the State Administration for Market Regulation.

Data show the amount of infringement of consumers' personal information is highest in the selling or leasing property, with punishment given in 273 such cases. Those cases accounted for nearly 19 percent of all cases handled during the campaign, which lasted from April 1 to Sept 30, the administration said on Monday.

The other two sectors where infringement of consumers' personal information is most likely to occur is education and training, and housing decoration.

"With rapid economic and social development, new industries have kept emerging and business models are innovating, and consumers' personal information has become an important business resource," Yang Hongcan, head of the administration's Law Enforcement and Supervision Bureau, said at a news conference on Monday.

"As a result, violations such as illegally collecting, buying, selling, using and exposing consumers' personal information are increasing. Junk mobile text messages, harassing telephone calls and swindling precisely targeted people have seriously eroded consumers' personal lives and property security, and have affected the normal social and economic order."

To respond to public appeals, the administration launched the special campaign focusing on major areas including property selling and renting, financing and loans, education and training, insurance, body building, express delivery and apps. Major violations targeted by enforcement officers included exposing or selling consumers' personal information to others, collecting such information without the consent of consumers and delivering business information to consumers without their consent.

During the half-year campaign, market regulators across China doled out punishment in 1,474 cases, which included levying fines of nearly 20 million yuan ($2.6 million), and handed over 154 cases to police for suspected crimes, Yang said.

In one case, a real estate agency based in Luoyang, Henan province, collected more than 68,000 pieces of personal information without consent from the owners of houses that it sold. The information covered names of the property owners, their telephone numbers, housing locations and the sizes of their homes.

Luoyang's market regulation bureau started the investigation following reports from some of the property owners in August. The agency's staff who are suspected of crimes have been transferred to the local public security bureau, Tong Bo, an official with the administration, said.

Yang, head of the administration's Law Enforcement and Supervision Bureau, said cases involving infringement of consumers' personal information are rampant, but it is difficult to handle such cases and punish perpetrators due to difficulties in acquiring and preserving evidence.

"Violators involved in such cases usually keep illegally collected information in electronic files, and they only contact consumers through means such as telephone and e-mail rather than in person," he said. "Some of them even try to conceal their true identity using software.

"Market regulation authorities will further improve law enforcement … and continue to organize similar special law enforcement campaigns to severely fight all sorts of legal violations that damage consumers' interests," he said.