Employees of a Taipei-based business are being questioned under suspicion of breaching the Personal Information Protection Act (個人資料保護法) after jobseekers’ personal data were leaked to an insurance company, prosecutors said yesterday.
Stay At Home Economy Business Center (台灣宅經濟商務公司) manager Hsu Che-yu (許哲毓) and his wife, as well as board member Yang Chin-chieh (楊沁潔), were on Friday summoned for questioning after the personal data of about 20,000 jobseekers was leaked to Fubon Insurance, New Taipei City prosecutors said, adding that a female worker, surnamed Yang (楊), was summoned as a witness.
The company’s login credentials for 1111 Job Bank, where it had posted an ad for jobseekers, were allegedly leaked to a human resources representative at Fubon, who then contacted the jobseekers to recruit them, even though they requested not to receive insurance sales job offers or direct marketing when they registered on the 1111 Job Bank Web site.
A Fubon employee, surnamed Chen (陳), has not yet appeared for questioning as he is out of the country, prosecutors said, adding that Chen was released on NT$80,000 bail, and Yang Chin-chieh on NT$20,000 bail.
The female employee was released without bail, they said.
Investigators found that Chen has an account at 104 Job Bank, for which he has been paying an annual membership fee of NT$30,000, but there have been no reports of a data leak from that Web site, prosecutors said.
Investigations began after 1111 Job Bank reported receiving complaints that its users were receiving recruitment-related text messages from Chen, prosecutors said.
Investigations led to Stay At Home Economy Business Center’s account, and it was discovered that Chen had been renting an office at the company for approximately NT$10,000 per month since 2013, and since December 2016 had been paying 1111 Job Bank NT$8,000 on behalf of the company, prosecutors said.
The men could face up to five years in prison for breaching the act and for Offenses of Impairment to Use of Computers (妨害電腦使用罪), they said.
Prosecutors said they would expand the investigation to rule out the possibility that other job bank users were affected, or that Hsu and the others had sold the information to other parties.
A representative of 1111 Job Bank said that the company does not allow recruiters from insurance companies or direct-sale marketers to access their clients’ information and they would cooperate with investigators to ensure that their users’ data are safe.
Fubon Life president Benson Chen (陳俊伴) said his company does not permit its staff to use job banks or other non-internal resources for recruiting.
The company would conduct its own investigation, he said, adding that any employee found violating its policies would face strict disciplinary action.
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