Thousands of private videos of sick babies posted on website in China
Police investigating case in Anhui province after hospital security breach was spotted by mother
Nearly 6,000 private videos of sick, newborn babies who received treatment at a hospital in eastern China have been posted on a website, sparking a police investigation.
The videos were filmed of babies who received care at the Anhui Women and Children Healthcare Hospital in Hefei, the China Youth Daily reported.
The videos were of newborns kept in for treatment for ailments such as jaundice and the one-minute films were designed to be sent to parents unable to visit their child so they could keep track of their progress.
The private videos were uploaded onto the video sharing website 56.com.
Cards on hospital beds with the babies’ names and the reason for their stay in hospital were all clearly visible in the clips.
Hua Ling, a publicity official at the hospital, was quoted as saying the leak may have been caused by a hacker, but this has yet to be confirmed.
“The videos were taken for parents to check how the babies fared during their treatment. They ended up on a commercial website,” Hua said.
The hospital has filed an official complaint with the police and are cooperating with the investigation, the report said.
It is common practice in China for parents to be barred from visiting newborn babies kept in hospital for treatment for fear of infections.
The Anhui hospital said the video clips were meant for family use and no commercial interest was gained.
Parents could originally log on to a hospital website with a username and password for a weekly virtual visit to see the babies, starting from 2014. The service was changed the following year to send one-minute videos to parents by email.
A statement from the hospital said the leak involved inpatient babies from 2014 to March 2015 and the video clips do not reveal personal data such as home addresses and telephone numbers.
These films have now been deleted from the website.
The incident was exposed by a mother in Hefei in Anhui province who searched her son’s name online and stumbled upon a hospital video clip online. The 15-second clip showed her son in an incubator with lingering shots on the baby’s personal information.
She complained to the local news website Anhuinews.com and triggered the investigation.
The mother said she felt uncomfortable as the video clips were on the same web page as advertisements, some featuring revealing pictures of women models.
She also complained that she had been harassed by sales calls from people who seemed to know details about her son, such as his birthday.
