Alibaba Subsidiary in China Experiences Customer Personal Information Leak

[Photo by AFP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Byung-hee] It has been confirmed that a customer personal information leak incident occurred at a subsidiary of Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce company.

On the 24th (local time), according to 21st Century Business Herald and others, a public document containing information about a recent incident in China where customer information of Alibaba's cloud subsidiary, Aliyun, was transferred to an external company rapidly spread online. The document is a reply from the Zhejiang Provincial Communications Administration, where Alibaba's headquarters are located, to a user of Aliyun who reported the personal information leak damage.

The Zhejiang Provincial Communications Administration stated in the document that on November 11, 2019, Aliyun was found to have transferred personal information to an external partner without customer consent, which is a violation of the Cybersecurity Law, and requested Alibaba to make improvements.

The Zhejiang Provincial Communications Administration confirmed to 21st Century Business Herald that the document was indeed a reply sent to the actual complainant.

In a statement released the previous day, Aliyun explained that around the time of the November 11, 2019 Singles' Day shopping festival, a marketing staff member of Aliyun violated internal regulations by transferring customer information to a marketing agency, and that the staff member was strictly disciplined and personnel management deficiencies would be strengthened.

The Aliyun customer personal information leak incident coincidentally emerged as the newly enacted Personal Information Protection Law is scheduled to take effect from November.

It is anticipated that once the Personal Information Protection Law, which regulates the collection and use of personal information, is enforced, it will curb the revenue generation models of large technology companies based on the free collection and use of personal information.