BERLIN • Germany's intelligence service has published details of social network profiles which it says are fronts adopted by Chinese intelligence to gather personal information about German officials and politicians.
The BfV domestic intelligence service took the unusual step of naming fake organisations and individual profiles it says are fake to warn public officials about the risk of leaking valuable personal information via social media.
"Chinese intelligence services are active on networks like LinkedIn and have been trying for a while to extract information and find intelligence sources in this way", including seeking data on users' habits, hobbies and political interests, they said.
Nine months of research had found that over 10,000 German citizens had been contacted on the LinkedIn professional networking site by fake profiles disguised as headhunters, consultants, think-tankers or scholars, the BfV said.
"There could be a large number of target individuals and fake profiles that have not yet been identified," they added.
Among the faked profiles whose details were published were "Rachel Li", identified as a "headhunter" at "RiseHR", and "Alex Li", "project manager at Center for Sino-Europe Development Studies".
Many of the profile pictures show stylish and visually appealing young men and women.
The picture of "Laeticia Chen", a manager at the "China Center of International Politics and Economy" was nicked from an online fashion catalogue, an official said.
A Reuters review of the profiles showed that some were connected to senior diplomats and politicians from European countries.
The warning reflects growing concern among European and Western intelligence circles about Chinese covert activities in their countries and follows warnings from the United States Central Intelligence Agency about attempts by the Asian economic giant's security services to recruit American citizens as agents.
The BfV invited concerned users to contact it if they encountered social media profiles that seemed suspect.
REUTERS
