China’s new cyber police chief takes aim at identity theft
- Appointment of Lin Rui reflects the importance President Xi Jinping puts on cleaning up cyberspace, observers say
- Many data company officials have already been detained in crackdown on theft of ID card photographs, according to source
China’s newest public security vice-minister will have the job of improving cybersecurity both inside and outside his place of work, observers said on Thursday.
The appointment of Lin Rui, which was announced on Wednesday, less than five months after he was named an assistant public security minister and head of its cybersecurity bureau, reflected the importance Chinese President Xi Jinping put on cleaning up cyberspace, sources said.
And his first major crackdown on cybercrime appears to be well under way.
“I know lots of people working for big data companies have been detained by the cyber police since last month,” a source who once worked for one of the country’s biggest data firms said. “This crackdown is much bigger than the one they had in May.”
The source said that part of the investigation was into a widespread leak of official identity photographs from public security agencies. The images were often obtained by criminal gangs who would then use them to blackmail people.
“The success rate of this type of con scheme is actually very high,” he said. “But we need to ask, where do they get the ID photos from?”
