A hacker has claimed to have stolen the personal information of 1 billion Chinese citizens from a Shanghai police database, in what would amount to one of the biggest data breaches in history if found to be true.
The identity of the hacker is not clear. The Guardian was unable to verify the authenticity of the post, and several numbers in the sample database were no longer in use when contacted by the Guardian.
Officials in China have yet to respond to the alleged data hack as of Monday.
Yi Fu-Xian, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he had downloaded the sample data available on the internet and found information related to his home county in Hunan province.
China has in recent years seen a number of data leak incidents. In 2016, sensitive informationabout powerful Chinese individuals, including the founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, was posted on Twitter.
These incidents alarmed the Chinese authorities. Last year, China passed laws governing how personal information and data generated within its borders should be handled.
The claim of a hack comes as China has vowed to improve protection of online user data privacy, instructing its tech giants to ensure safer storage after public complaints about mismanagement and misuse.
