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PETALING JAYA: A Chinese company linked to Beijing’s military and intelligence networks has amassed a vast database of detailed personal information on 2.4 million people, including 1,400 Malaysians.
According to a report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the database was leaked from Shenzhen’s Zhenhua Data company, which is believed to be used by China’s intelligence service.
The leak raises more questions about the extent and scope of China’s intelligence gathering operations, as Zhenhua has the People’s Liberation Army and the Chinese Communist Party among its main clients.
The database was leaked to a Vietnam-based American academic, Chris Balding, who until 2018 had worked at Peking University before leaving China citing fears for his physical safety.
Of the 250,000 records retrieved by a Canberra cybersecurity company, there are 1,400 Malaysians, 2,100 Indonesians, 52,000 Americans, 35,000 Australians, 10,000 Indians, 9,700 British, 5,000 Canadians, and 138 from Papua New Guinea.
“China is absolutely building a mass surveillance state both domestically and internationally,” Balding told ABC.
The information collected includes date of birth, address, and marital status, along with photographs, political associations, family members, and social media identifications, much of which was obtained from social media.
While most of the information was taken from public material, some profiles contained information that appeared to come from confidential bank records, job applications, and psychological profiles, likely obtained from the dark web.
This data dump suggests a complex global operation that uses artificial intelligence to crawl publicly available data to create detailed profiles of individuals and organizations, looking for engagement opportunities.
Zhenhua boasts about 20 “collection nodes” spread across the world, two of which have been identified as in Kansas, the United States, and the South Korean capital, Seoul.
