Yahoo News Artist buys personal data of 350,000 people on the black market and displays it in a gallery
An exhibition has been closed down after an artist bought the persona data of almost 350,000 people on the black market and displayed it in a museum, it has been reported.
Deng Yufeng obtained the names, addresses, emails, bank details and even salaries of 346,000 web users and put them on display, arts news site 1shouchang said.
His exhibition at a Wuhan Art Gallery in China was an attempt to show how easy it is for data to leak online and fall into the wrong hands.
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However, the authorities didn’t see it that way, and closed down the exhibition after just two days, even though Deng blurred the information when it went on display.
He even text messaged more than 300,000 people to invite them to the museum to see that their personal details were in the show.
His exhibition, Secrets, opened last week, and was divided into various sections on big data and online behaviour.
Included in the display were people’s online shopping history, train tickets and car licence plates.
The artist is reportedly being investigated by police.
Deng said many of the people he invited by text to the show responded with the message, “you are sick”.
