Cao Yin and Zheng Xin report:
Private information about elementary and secondary school students and their families is for sale online, which legal experts say constitutes an invasion of privacy.
On the list, information about the capital’s 70,000 students who sat the recent college entrance examination sells for more than 1,000 yuan ($155).
Information on the list includes names, cell phone numbers and home addresses of students from across the country. The information usually sells as a package for different regions and the prices for each package could be up to 1,000 yuan ($155).
[…]
… both sellers refused to explain how they acquired the information.
“It must be an invasion of privacy,” Xiang Yang, a lawyer at Yingke Law Firm, said.
Usually, sellers get the information from officials of private schools, whose enrolment regulations are not as strict as those at public schools, Xiang said.
“Officials at the schools can make money from the sellers,” he said. “They are the source of the information and the reason why sellers can easily get private information.”
Also, there are few laws or regulations to punish private institutions for privacy breaches and this provides opportunities for the sellers and the schools to make deals, Xiang said.
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