Prison for couple on privacy charges
Print Edition
A BRITISH investigator and his American wife were sent to prison yesterday after they were found guilty of illegally obtaining and selling personal details of Chinese citizens, a case that had links to a bribery investigation into GlaxoSmithKline Plc.
Peter Humphrey was sentenced to two and half years and fined 200,000 yuan (US$32,488). He will be deported at the end of his sentence. Yu Yingzeng was sentenced to two years and fined 150,000 yuan.
The couple ran risk consultancy ChinaWhys, whose clients included the British drugmaker. Their arrest last year coincided with a government investigation into allegations GSK staff funneled hundreds of millions of pounds through travel agencies to bribe Chinese doctors and health officials to boost sales and raise prices.
GSK said earlier it had hired the couple to investigate a security breach but not the bribery allegations, Reuters reported.
Prosecutors said the couple had illegally obtained more than 200 items of private information, including household registration data, real estate documents and phone records, and then re-sold the information. GSK was not mentioned in the charge sheet.
Humphrey told Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court his company did not profit from selling personal information.
Humphrey said it earned its money by compiling reports for clients based on analyzing and researching the information.
Yu told the court: “In other countries, we were able to conduct similar checks, including personal information and private transactions, legally through courts.”
“If we had known that it was illegal, my husband and I would have destroyed all traces of this information,” she added.
Prosecutors said the couple had knowingly obtained and purchased personal information from as far back as nine years and had made huge profits from their business dealings.
They said the law stipulates that any activity involved in the buying and selling of personal information is considered a violation to privacy.
Prosecutors said: “China welcomes foreigners to conduct business here but they have to follow local laws and regulations, and the two suspects have disregarded the basic human rights of citizens simply to make profit from their business dealings.”
The court heard that the Shanghai Public Security Bureau received information about ChinaWhys in July last year which prompted a search of the couple’s residences in Beijing and Shanghai.
Yu told the court that 90 to 95 percent of the data the couple obtained came from household registrations that listed family members and their birth dates, according to a trial transcript.
Yu said such information was useful in revealing misconduct such as an employee setting up a competing company under a relative’s name.
She said the firm was paid 20,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan (US$3,200 to US$32,000) per case.
“The purpose of our obtaining individual information was to help prevent and fight corporate internal corruption,” Yu told the court.
Shanghai police have said several dozen reports prepared by Humphrey and Yu for clients “seriously violated the legitimate rights of citizens.”
Defense lawyer Duan Wanjin said that what ChinaWhys’ clients commissioned the firm to do was “common practice” in business.
Another defense lawyer, Zhai Jian, said the couple only compiled reports at the request of clients and they were not a major threat to privacy.
Only a small number of reports included citizens’ household registration information, details of entering and exiting the country or communication logs, Zhai said.
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