New China database leak reveals personal data on 1.8 million women - including their 'BreedReady' status

Chinese state database network leaks more personal information, including fields headed 'Political' and 'Has video' with links to social media pages

A cyber security researcher has found an unsecure database in China revealing age, address, phone numbers, marital status and even a field on the "BreedReady" status of more than 1.8 million women.

The database was found by Victor Gevers, a Dutch researcher who works for non-profit organisation GDI.Foundation. Gevers discovered the open database last week.

The discovery of the database, with the "BreedReady" status of more than 1.8 million women, comes as the country's government starts to get to grips with an anticipated long-term population decline.

That is expected to kick-in in 2029. The government relaxed this policy over the past ten years but, like most middle-income and prosperous countries, its natural birth rate has already declined abruptly.

"In China, they have a shortage of women. So an organisation started to build a database to start registering over 1.8 million women with all kinds of details like phone numbers, addresses, education, location, ID number, marital status, and a 'BreedReady' status?," Gevers tweeted last week.

He also posted some screenshots of the database in the hope of collecting more information about the database.

It is unclear exactly what "BreedReady" means, although some people suggested it could be referring to women who are in the age group of about 18 to 39. Others have argued that it refers to women having "children". The dataset contained either 0 or 1 to indicate "no" or "yes".

Gevers said that the average age of women in the database is 32. The oldest woman in the database is 95 years old, while the youngest is 15.

The status of 89 per cent of women is single, 10 per cent are divorced and one per cent are widowed. Eighty-two per cent are listed as living in the city of Beijing.

The youngest woman with BreedReady "1" status is 18 years of age, while the most aged woman with a BR "1" status is 39.

The database also contained fields labelled "political" and "has-video". Some entries for women even contained links to Facebook profile pages, although the website is banned in the country.

It seems some women may be accessing the social network while visiting a foreign country or through a virtual private network.

It is also unclear whether the unprotected database is related to a government registry, a dating app, or any other organisation/firm.

According to Gevers, the database remained online for only about two day and was taken down after it was reported on Twitter.

Notably, Gevers also found 18 unprotected MongoDB databases in China earlier this month. The databases, which were taken offline later, leaked details associated with millions of accounts registered on six social platforms in China.