A dispute between a Chinese talk show host and his former employer ignited social media on Thursday when it turned into an issue relevant to everyone - privacy protection. He claimed that China Citic Bank provided his bank statements to a third-party.
A talk show host and comedian Wang Yuechi, commonly called Chizi, resorted to his Weibo to publicize his grudge against the media company and criticized Citic Bank's wrongdoings.
Chizi said he has been involved in lawsuits with his former employer due to salary disputes and, to his surprise, he even received a copy of his personal bank account statements among the files sent by the company.
△ A screenshot of Chizi's post on Weibo
"You have neither my ID card, nor my debit card, and not even a search warrant by any legal authority, how could you illegally obtain my bank statements of the past two years and print it out?" he wrote.
"Later, I called Citic Bank, who told me they did this to meet their VIP client's requirement."
The comedian then expressed his concerns of bank users' privacy. Chizi said he had called the police and reported the case to the banking and insurance regulatory commissions, hoping to sound an alarm for the public.
The incident ignited on social media, triggering heated discussions, for the core issue went beyond a single dispute between a celebrity and the entertainment company, but struck a chord with the masses who have a growing awareness of privacy protection.
This is not the first time Citic Bank has run into issues with leaking consumers' personal information. Online comments mentioned similar experiences, and some netizens mining the web found out several more cases of regulation violations because of the bank's revealing loan or credit information to a third-party.
The bank released a statement on Thursday morning, apologizing to Wang over wrongdoings.
△ The bank posted the statement on Weibo
According to the statement, Shanghai Xiaoguo media company, Chizi's former employer, requested their bank clerk to check Chizi's salary record.
Without strictly following the bank's regulations, the staff member handed Wang's account statements to the media company, ignoring the fact that personal data is a privacy protected, accessible only to the owner himself.
"We have punished the related staff according to our disciplinary rules," wrote the notice. "The branch manager was also removed from the post."
However, netizens didn't buy it at all. Thousands of angry or sarcastic comments were posed on social media.
△ "Dare not go to this bank anymore! They can do anything for their VIP clients."
△ "I'm a VIP client, so I would like to check Jack Ma's bank statements please."
Lawyers interviewed by media believe Citic Bank's behavior of exposing information is illegal, which may lead to criminal punishments.
“The relevant employees who have exposed personal information of clients may face criminal charges, and the bank is also responsible. It is clear in the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Commercial Banks that banks ought to protect the private information of customers, except in cases of authorized requests by legal authorities,” lawyer Jason Yao told Shanghai Daily.
“In this case, the media company is the employer who may have opened the account on behalf of its employee, which is quite common. But it is still private information of the employee, and the employer has no right to request them, nor should the bank expose the bank statements to the company.”
Yao said there are clauses on privacy protection in many laws, and a draft of a personal information protection law is also in the making.
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SOURCE | China Daily / 21世纪经济报道 / Shine
