What’s trending?

#6分钱就能购买儿童个人信息# A black market operation that buys children’s personal information for 6 fen (1 cents USD) each is trending on Weibo, as police in the eastern city of Xuzhou broke up an online tech consultancy established in January after it was flagged as having suspiciously heavy phone traffic.

What’s the story?

A raid on the Jiangsu province company uncovered an alleged database of hundreds of school children’s personal information including age, gender, city and parents’ phone numbers which had been purchased online for between 6 fen and 1 yuan each. The company was reportedly engaged in spam calling parents on behalf of online training courses, and receiving commission for each successful sign-up. Each successful training program recommendations netted the data consultancy between 30 yuan and 60 yuan.

Chinese national broadcaster CCTV reported that two of the company’s bosses, surnamed Yang and Liu, are in detention for the illegal trade in personal data, and two others are under investigation. China’s recently implemented civil law has given law enforcers more powers to break up illegal entities engaged in such black market supply chains.

What are people saying online?

For some Weibo users, this incident is seen as the tip of the iceberg. “It’s too scary. This is just used to recruit students. If it’s sold to human traffickers, it’s terrifying,” said one popular comment.

For many commentators, the story is not a surprise. “My mobile phone almost never rings except for daily calls from training institutions. And they know very well the grade and name of my child,” wrote one parent, who said she began by replying politely before realizing the callers never took no for an answer.

Scam calls are seen as fairly untargeted. As one learner wrote, “It’s weird. I have only attended VIPKids online classes once, years ago. I am not your target user. Please don't bother me anymore.”

More annoyingly, training schools are calling people before their child is even born, and even after the child has grown up. “They keep calling me to ask if I need revision classes to move up to third grade of high school. I’m already in the third grade. Why would I want to repeat a year?” said one. “Do you know that their information is not updated? I have already given birth to a child. My mother also receives calls asking, “Hello, does your child need high school English tuition?”

Related: China’s Education Ministry Weighs Tightening Supervision of Tutoring Sector