Shanghai Municipal Health Bureau Data Breach (2011)

Local police have arrested a computer database manager accused of stealing more than 140,000 pieces of personal information about newborn babies and their parents from a Shanghai Municipal Health Bureau database, police announced at a press conference Wednesday. The suspect, surnamed Zhang, 30 years old, earned 30,000 yuan ($4,727) selling the information while he worked as technical manager for a company that maintained the health bureau's database, according to Yu Song, vice captain of the Zhabei district police's economic crime department. From the beginning of 2011 until April 2012, Zhang accessed the database twice a month from his home computer, downloading the information that then sold to a manager at Shanghai Roadway D&B Marketing Services Co, the Shanghai subsidiary of the US commercial information firm Dun & Bradstreet Corp. The local company was shut down in March on charges of illegally trading personal information received from various sources. Police have arrested another 47 suspects who sold stolen personal information to the firm.