Real estate company hit with hefty fine for collecting, selling data
A regulatory official investigates Shanghai Junting Real Estate Co Ltd for data breach.
A real estate company in Shanghai was slapped with a hefty fine for illegally collecting and exposing the personal information of more than 2,000 consumers, the city's market watchdog said.
Shanghai Junting Real Estate Co Ltd was found collecting consumers' information via four cameras with face recognition functions at its sales office in Jiading District.
The Shanghai Administration for Market Regulation revealed on Tuesday that 20,596 pieces of information from 2,250 consumers had been collected until inspectors detected the act late last year.
The administration said that the company gave the personal information to a property management company and real estate agencies without the consumers' permission and without telling them why and how the information would be used.
The company was fined 400,000 yuan (US$59,480) for infringing consumer rights.
In a separate case, a hot spring hotel in downtown Huangpu District was fined 100,000 yuan for violating China's advertisement law.
Shanghai Aixin Hotel Management Co Ltd, which operates the Xiaozun Hotspring Hotel, claimed its hot spring helped with blood circulation, lowering blood pressure, and curing skin diseases in its WeChat promotions, the market regulators said.
Under Chinese law, businesses are banned from promoting disease-specific treatment claims, except for companies involved in selling drugs, medical apparatus and instruments.
