More Than 35,000 Australians Spied on by Military-Linked Chinese Company

A Chinese company with links to Beijing’s military and secretive intelligence arm has amassed the personal details of more than 35,000 Australians as part of a giant global database targeting influential figures and their families, The company, Zhenhua Data, is tied to the People’s Liberation Army, Ministry of State Security, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and has collated the profiles of 2.4 million people across the world. The data contains information on 35,558 Australian individuals, including prominent people in politics, business, law, academia, and defence. It includes birth dates, addresses, marital statuses, and political leanings. Bank records, job applications and psychological profiles were also included in the data, much of which was taken from public documents, including news articles, criminal records, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. However, 20 percent of the data is not open source, including confidential documents, indicating that the information was obtained through hacking or the dark web. The database was leaked by an anonymous employee of Zhenhua Data and discovered by Professor Chris Balding, who worked at Peking University until 2018 when he fled to Vietnam over safety concerns.