Selling now: your personal data
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Personal information of models, beauty contestants, singers, actors, cell phone users, businessmen and other VIPs in Vietnam including their emails and phone numbers are publicly sold on the Internet.
The website http://www.danhsachkhachhang.com, purportedly run by a center based in Ho Chi Minh City’s district 10, offers to sell a huge database of customers from various sectors.
The site, currently inaccessible, claims to possess information relating to 9,728 company directors, 1,200 chairmen of corporate management boards, 850 members of the city’s Young Entrepreneur Club 2030, and 2,230 properties owners in the city’s Phu My Hung New Urban Area – the most luxurious area in Vietnam.
Other information up for grab pertains to 1,300 Mercedes car owners, 750 BMW owners, and 1,200 clients of the premium real estate Pearl Saigon Project.
Pretending to be interested, Tuoi Tre reporters contacted L. who demanded a little over VND2 million (US$100) for a database of 10,000 customers of the city-based Nguyen Kim Shopping Center, 30,000 post-paid subscribers of MobiFone and 7,000 potential clients of the American insurer AIA.
After bargaining, the price was reduced to VND1.3 million.
L. said the information contained therein were correct and reliable since he obtained them from original sources.
Asked whether such transaction was illegal, L. avoided the question, saying the list would help many companies who want to directly market their products.
He also claims to have several “special lists” containing private information of singers, models, winners of beauty contestants, and staff at two large banks in Ho Chi Minh City, among others.
But such information is not publicly sold online, he said, adding he would only sell them to familiar people.
L. also offered to sell a detailed list of 2,000 post-paid subscribers of Vinaphone and 20,000 post-paid subscribers of Viettel.
Massive customer database for 1 buck
A classified ad on www.365quangcao.com reads, “We now have a customer database classified by name, address, phone, email, sex, age, hobby, personal demand”.
The seller, known as Khoa, wrote on the site that the database contains information of up to 5 million people across the country.
He said the list would be especially useful to companies in insurance, banking, and multi-level marketing.
According to another ad on another website, a Mr. Long who claimed to be working for a communication firm in Ho Chi Minh City is selling a CD containing details of 10,000 of his clients.
Long said that the customers come from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Da Nang and many other localities across the country.
The CD is surprisingly cheap, priced at just VND30,000 (US$1.5).
Buyers can order the CD to be delivered to their doors or pay through an ATM transfer.
According to lawyer Tran Vuong Thao of the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, selling or buying such personal information constitutes a crime of “violation of privacy”.
Depending on the nature and seriousness, violators may be fined VND30 million (US$1,500) or less. They could even face criminal prosecution under Article 226 of the Penal Code, he added.
