Beijing-based online resume scraper Qiaoda Group is allegedly under investigation for illegal data collection. Staff have been taken away by the police and its office was raided, several Chinese media have reported.
Qiaoda Group developed a human resources (HR) tool based on user data scraped from legitimate job hunting websites. Qiaoda’s Resume Time Machine allows recruiters to see the historical versions of a candidate’s resumes and its Aihuoban service sends employers alerts whenever their employees update their online resumes.
“Qiaoda Group scrapes data from other job-hunting sites without user permission and stores them on its own platform for profit. Such behaviour could be seen as a violation of user privacy,” Zhao Zhanling, a lawyer with the Beijing Zhilin Law Firm who specialised in information technology law told KrASIA.
The company could be investigated for infringing upon personal information of citizens, Zhao said. According to Chinese criminal law, the crime can carry up to 7 years’ imprisonment.
The online resume scraper’s investors include big-name tech guru Kai-Fu Lee’s Innovation Works and CITIC Private Equity. Innovation Works said earlier today that it is only a financial investor and did not participate in the daily operation of Qiaoda Group.
Storage security of data collected by online resume scrapers came into the public eye after highly detailed CVs of more than 202 million Chinese users were found on an unsecured database in January.
Write to Luna Lin at [email protected]
Editor: Nadine Freischlad