Severe punishment for black hands reaching out to citizens' personal information
Comic/Gao Yue
□ Our reporter Xu Weilun
"The criminal means of infringing citizens' personal information is based on the Internet, showing a diversified, technological, and concealed development trend." Recently, the Beijing Third Intermediate People's Court held a press conference on the trial of criminal cases involving citizens' personal information. Vice President Xin Shangmin said that the protection of citizens’ personal information is not only a requirement for the protection of human rights in my country’s Constitution, but also a practical need under the rapid development of network information technology.
In order to protect the security of citizens’ personal information and other legitimate rights and interests, my country’s Criminal Law specifically stipulates the crime of infringing on citizens’ personal information and severely punishes criminals who extend their personal information.
For relevant staff closely related to personal information, the judge reminded that illegally obtaining, selling or providing more than 50 pieces of track information, communication content, credit information, and property information constitutes a crime. If it is an individual obtained in the performance of his duties Information, the penalty standard is halved, so don’t touch the legal red line.
For ordinary people, they should increase their awareness of personal information protection in their daily lives, and do not fill in, share, or discard personal information at will.
Criminal law punishes "inner ghosts"
In recent years, a large area of user personal information leakage incidents are not uncommon. In addition to network "hackers", there are also many "inside ghosts" originating from enterprises.
Xu, a property worker in a residential area, is one of such "inside ghosts".
Before this, in order to obtain information about the owners of a certain community in Beijing, Ouyang had repeatedly contacted Xu, the property staff member of the community, to discuss purchase matters.
After that, Xu, in collaboration with Li, Wu and others, illegally logged into the computer of his property company, stole more than 4,000 pieces of owner’s information, and sold it to Ouyang for 4,000 yuan.
After the trial, the court held that the defendant Ouyang and others had illegally obtained citizens’ personal information and the circumstances were serious. Their actions had violated the criminal law and constituted the crime of illegally obtaining citizens’ personal information. They should be punished in accordance with the law and sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment for Ouyang and Xu respectively. Years; Li, Wu and others were sentenced to imprisonment ranging from 8 months to 10 months, and suspended for 1 year.
Wang Haihong, head of the First Criminal Division of the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court, said that the Criminal Law Amendment (9) implemented in 2015 revised and improved one of the 253rd Articles of the Criminal Law Amendment (7): The scope of criminal subjects stipulates that any unit or individual violates relevant state regulations to obtain, sell or provide citizens’ personal information. If the circumstances are serious, it constitutes a crime; the second is to clearly stipulate the citizens’ personal information that will be obtained in the course of performing duties or providing services Those who sell or provide to others shall be severely punished; the third is to increase the statutory penalties and add provisions that “if the circumstances are particularly serious, they shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years and a fine”.
After the amendment, the "crime of selling or illegally providing citizens' personal information" and "crime of illegally obtaining citizens' personal information" have been integrated into the "crime of violating citizens' personal information".
There are many types of citizens’ personal information. Among them, track information, communication content, credit information, property information, accommodation information, communication records, health and physiological information, transaction information and other sensitive personal information of citizens involve personal safety and property safety. After being illegally acquired, sold, or provided, it is very easy to cause related crimes such as kidnapping, fraud, and extortion, which has greater social harm.
To this end, the "Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Laws in Handling Criminal Cases of Infringement of Citizens’ Personal Information" has set the incriminating standards of "50 or more," "500 or more," and "5,000 or more" according to the nature of the information. , In order to achieve the guilt, responsibility and punishment.
Among them, illegally acquiring, selling or providing accommodation information, communication records, health and physiological information, transaction information and other personal information of citizens that may affect personal and property safety more than 500 pieces; illegally acquiring, selling or providing more than 5,000 pieces of personal information of general citizens , Constitutes a crime of infringing on citizens’ personal information.
In addition, the illegal income of selling or illegally providing citizens’ personal information is more than 5,000 yuan, which is also a serious crime and constitutes a crime.
Wang Haihong reminded that the property information of personal information includes not only the identity authentication information of financial service accounts such as bank accounts, third-party payment settlement accounts, securities and futures accounts, but also property status information such as deposits and real estate.
It is important to note that many current cases of citizens’ personal information leakage are committed by insiders.
In this regard, the judicial interpretation stipulates that if the personal information of citizens obtained in the course of performing their duties or providing services is sold or provided to others, the quantity and amount standards are halved to calculate the conviction standards.
Prone to secondary crime
"From the perspective of judicial practice, leaking, abusing, and collecting citizens' personal information beyond the scope will not only cause difficulties for citizens' normal lives, but may also become a breeding ground for crimes, providing'precision guidance' for secondary crimes such as telecom fraud and extortion. "Xin Shangmin said that by combing through the criminal cases involving citizens’ personal information that have been tried since the establishment of the Beijing Third Intermediate Court, it was found that the personal information involved in recent years has changed from traditional static information such as name, ID number, mobile phone number, and address. Multi-dimensional and multi-dimensional dynamic information such as credit information, location information, track information, accommodation information, housing property information, etc. has been added. The carrier for storing information has changed from traditional U disks and hard disks to clouds with larger storage capacity. plate.
The means to obtain citizens’ personal information includes not only secretly stealing database data of specific agencies and institutions through technical means such as Trojan horse programs, rewriting URLs, setting up servers, and building websites, but also through mobile QQ groups, WeChat groups, forums and other networks Platforms clearly mark prices for purchases, and use “dark web” methods such as “big data interception” and “dark web access” to conduct illegal transactions of citizens’ personal information.
From the analysis of the defendant’s occupational distribution, the Beijing Third Intermediate Court found that unemployed, company employees, company managers, etc. were involved, and their behaviors were all related to profit-making activities. They used the convenience of their positions or the advantages of managing citizens’ personal information. The collected personal information of citizens has accumulated, and this kind of behavior has also appeared.
In recent years, the public security organs’ investigation targets for cases have expanded from natural persons to commercial companies and other units, and there have been situations in which companies, company general managers, and company employees jointly assume criminal responsibility.
Among them, enterprises (such as hotels, courier companies, food delivery platforms, etc.) have become the hardest hit areas for information leakage. Unit employees use their positions to obtain personal information from citizens, and criminal suspects invade enterprises to obtain personal information through malicious software.
Do not fill in personal information randomly
In recent years, with the widespread application of information technologies such as the Internet, big data, and cloud computing, the protection of citizens' personal information has become an increasingly serious issue.
For individuals, Li Dan, a judge of the First Criminal Division of Beijing's Third Intermediate People's Court, suggested that individuals must first establish a positive sense of prevention and not fill in, share, or discard personal information at will.
For example, fill in your resume and only write the necessary information, but also pay attention to check whether the job search platform and the recruitment company are formal; when copying ID cards and other documents, you must specify the purpose to prevent them from being used by others; properly keep and handle the receipts containing personal information , Such as express bills, train tickets, plane tickets, insurance policies, bank transaction vouchers, etc., personal information needs to be removed before discarding; avoid random participation in lotteries, quizzes, etc. on the Internet or on the street that require personal information such as real identities and mobile phone numbers. Promotional gifts, street questionnaires and other activities; do not randomly discard or sell unprocessed mobile phones, computers and other items that contain personal information.
At the same time, individuals should pay attention to network security when surfing the Internet and try not to enter personal account numbers and passwords on public electronic devices. If they must be entered, they must log out safely and clear relevant records. When making online payments, avoid using unknown public networks to ensure payment security.
When shopping online, you should carefully check the URL, do not easily receive and install unknown software, do not just click on the link sent by the other party in the chat, and be very careful when filling in the bank account and password.
Try to avoid over-exposing your true identity, family residence, work address, children's situation and other information through videos, photos, texts, etc. in your circle of friends.
After personal documents are lost or personal information is leaked, the first time to reissue the documents, change the account number, change important passwords to avoid economic losses; inform relatives and friends in time, take precautions in advance to avoid being deceived; untie mobile banking and payment before changing phone numbers Software; timely backup to avoid loss of property or account password due to computer failure, virus infection, etc.
Li Dan reminded that once personal information is leaked, you should write down the other party’s phone number or email address, address and other useful information, and call the police as soon as possible. Only by building a firewall for citizens’ information, weaving a tight and comprehensive legal net, and increasing The punishment of illegal crimes can effectively prevent the public from being disturbed and maintain a harmonious and stable social environment.