Data leak traced to YTO employee

A YTO Express employee has been arrested for selling the express delivery company's customer information to an online dealer, local media reported Thursday.

The suspect, surnamed Wang, who was arrested on October 15, is awaiting charges of illegally selling personal information, including names, telephone numbers and addresses, said a prosecutor surnamed Yin with the Qingpu District People's Prosecutor's Office.

Wang, who worked at YTO's office in Tianjin, had access to the company's database of customer information, according to a news report on Shanghai Television Station (STV). With her username and password, Wang could obtain regularly updated personal information of customers from around the country.

Wang leased her username and password to another suspect, surnamed Xu, for 500 yuan ($82) a month, according to the report. Xu sold the personal information of individual customers for 0.8 yuan to a website, which then resold the information online for 0.9 yuan per person.

Shanghai police began investigating the information dealing network after it ran across the website in July.

On September 12, Qingpu District People's Prosecutor's Office signed off on the arrests of Xu and five others who ran the website, Yin told the Global Times.

The six suspects have been arrested and await charges of illegally selling personal information.

The arrests did not stop information about YTO customers from leaking to other online dealers. In October, several online dealers contacted by the Global Times offered to sell the customer information of YTO and other express delivery companies, such as TTK, ZTO and Yunda Express.

Some buyers use the information to conduct scams or send out junk e-mail, said Wu Ji, a lawyer from Shanghai Hengye Law Firm, in a previous interview.

YTO has been unable to prevent the practice, though it has punished some employees on occasion.

A search of Taobao.com, which hosted personal information dealers in the past, turned up 220 results for personal information dealers Thursday.

Further searches found websites specializing in express company customer information.

A YTO press officer surnamed Zhou refused to say what measures the company has taken to secure its customers' personal information.