(File photo)

"I really don't know what to do!" Miss Wu, a Chongqing citizen, complained to a reporter from People's Daily.

Recently, Miss Wu purchased a new apartment. Since then, she has been constantly harassed by unwanted calls. "Different decoration companies call me. Sometimes I receive a dozen of these calls a day. I don't know how these companies got my number," Miss Wu said. 

Many other people are in the same situation. 

Statistics show that the leaking of personal information in China is a growing problem. As of now, 78.2 percent of Chinese netizens have had personal information leaked, including names, educational histories, home addresses, ID numbers and places of work; 63.4 percent have had online activities leaked, such as online shopping records, website browsing histories and IP addresses; and 82.3 percent of Chinese netizens have had their daily lives influenced by personal information leakage. 

Jing Tao, a senior engineer with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), explained that in the age of big data, a large amount of clients' personal information gets kept in the systems of large companies in order to facilitate the development of online business and make courier service more convenient. However, the supervision and management of such information still has room for improvement. 

"In the underground market, all personal information can be sold at a marked price. So some people who have access to such information can't resist the temptation,“ said Jing. “That's why a new mother get calls trying to sell her baby products, and why someone who just bought a car gets calls selling car insurance."