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Politicians and their families, diplomats, academics, business executives, scammers, judges and a sportswoman are among the New Zealanders profiled in a huge Chinese intelligence database.
Stuff has gained access to the “Overseas Key Individual Database”, which is said to include personal data of more than 2 million people around the world, and was collected by a Chinese data intelligence company linked to the device state intelligence agency of Beijing.
The extensive collection of data, primarily publicly available information, includes more than 730 New Zealanders and is part of a larger effort described by an intelligence official as “a global mass surveillance system on an unprecedented scale” that could be used for campaigns. of political influence.
Laurell, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s mother, father Ross and sister Louise, cabinet ministers, former Prime Minister Sir John Key’s son Max, and athlete Barbara Kendall, have attracted the interest of the Chinese firm , called Zhenhua Data.
Former Prime Minister John Key pictured with his son Max Key, who was named in the Zhenhua database, which included a dated photo of him taken from a Stuff article.
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Ardern, talking to Stuff During a campaign stop Tuesday, he said he would not comment on security matters or answer questions about his own family members who are on the list.
“I’m not in the habit of commenting on security-related issues … We need to make sure that, whether it’s cybersecurity issues, foreign interference issues, we need to make sure we have constant vigilance.”
The New Zealanders targeted for data collection range from people convicted of fraud and drug offenses to high-profile Maori leaders like Dame Naida Glavish, business leaders like former Finance Minister Ruth Richardson, and high-ranking Wellington bureaucrats, including the censor Chief David Shanks.
Those on the list were assigned the label “politically exposed person” or “relatives or close collaborator.” Many on the list have a current public profile, others have ended their public careers a decade ago. No private information appears to have been collected, and many of those listed are named simply, with little more detail.
Stuff you have contacted the New Zealanders profiled in the database. Zhenhua Data has not responded to a request for comment, nor has the Chinese Embassy.
Zhenhua Data describes itself as an open source data intelligence focused on “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”
Articles on the company’s website, now removed from the Internet, talk about waging a “hybrid war” and using social media to spread rumors and influence public opinion.
Zhenhua claims to have started in September 2017 and was looking for several employees, including customer sales representatives, to sell services to the “party, government and military”, and a writer who could “get all the information from the propaganda object.”
The database viewed by Stuff equates to roughly 10 percent of the total database the company had compiled. It was leaked to American academic associate professor Chris Balding, an expert on China, who then passed the material on to the Canberra-based cybersecurity company Internet 2.0.
Influential figures from around the world targeted by the database made international headlines on Monday, thanks to a consortium of journalists that includes reporters from the Australian financial review, he Washington Post, he Indian express, he Globe and mail in Canada, and Paper in Italy.
DOUG FIELD / THINGS
Olympian Barbara Kendall, who is on the International Olympic Committee, was profiled in a database compiled by a Chinese data firm called Zhenhua.
Internet 2.0 co-founder Robert Potter said Stuff Zhenhua Data had claimed to have profiles of 2.4 million people on its system, yet much of the database was corrupt and unrecoverable when it obtained its company.
Potter said that China’s offensive intelligence capabilities, hacking, and harvesting operations are both carried out by outside contractors, working on behalf of the government.
“In this case, there are a wide range of companies that Zhenhua claims to be associated with, all of those companies are reasonably prominent in China’s intelligence and military contracting space.”
He said the New Zealand list was “quite small”, although only part of the database had been revealed.
“The collection in New Zealand didn’t seem to be as well targeted as in other countries. In Australia, they seem to have spent a bit of time making sure there are a lot of really interesting people there.
RYAN ANDERSON / THINGS
Waitemata DHB senior adviser and Maori Party candidate Dame Naida Glavish was listed as a person of interest in a database maintained by a Chinese intelligence company.
Potter said that most countries would not invest in efforts to create such massive databases, but that such data could be used to try to influence countries, as happened in the Cambridge Analytical data breach and Russian interference in the data. 2016 U.S. elections.
“If you can outline the human terrain of a country and identify who the influencers are, you can have a disproportionate impact on the opinion of the country,” he said.
Potter said that although the information in the database was largely in the public domain, people should not be “fatalistic” about it being collected for intelligence purposes.
“When you share something with Facebook, you share it with Facebook. You have not necessarily agreed to share that with a third party that is collecting that data from Facebook.”
Rosa Woods / Stuff
Chief Censor David Shanks is among senior public officials listed in a database maintained by a Chinese intelligence firm.
Internet 2.0 received an intelligence assessment from Zhenhua and its database from an intelligence operation from one of the Five Eyes countries, Potter did not want to say which country, who said that Zhenhua was clearly an “intrinsic” part of the intelligence apparatus. Chinese state security in general.
The operation, in comments provided to Stuff, used the pseudonym “Aeneas” and said that the database was terrifying for the wide range of people covered.
“It deliberately collects people we would consider ‘civilians’ and who are not normally subject to collection, even in foreign countries,” he said.
Balding, in a statement about the leak posted on his website, said that the data breach demonstrated intelligence-gathering activities in which China was believed to be involved, for the first time.
“What cannot be underestimated is the breadth and depth of the Chinese surveillance state and its spread around the world,” he said.
