China hits back at German LinkedIn spy claims

APD NEWS

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China on Monday slammed comments by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency accusing Beijing of using LinkedIn accounts to spy on European officials and ministries as groundless .

"All I can say is that the allegations from the German organization in question are baseless,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters in Beijing.

“We hope the relevant German organizations, particularly government departments, can speak and act more responsibly and not do things that aren't beneficial to the development of bilateral relations," he added.

On Sunday, Germany’s Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz (BfV) said Chinese intelligence was using specially-created fake profiles on job networking site LinkedIn to gather personal information about German officials and politicians.

"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," the BfV said, quoted by Reuters.

“This is a broad-based attempt to infiltrate parliaments, ministries and civil service,” German media quoted BfV chief Hans-Georg Maassen as saying.

Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz) addresses a news conference in Berlin, Germany, July 4, 2017.

Over nine months of research, the BfV found that over 10,000 German citizens had been contacted on LinkedIn by fake users posing as academics, consultants or headhunters.

The BfV went as far as to name several of the fake users, including Laeticia Chen, a manager of project evaluation at the China Center of International Politics and Economy (CCIPE); Alex Li, a project manager at the Center for Sino-Europe Development Studies; Jason Wang, a manager of corporate relations at Association France Euro-Chine; and Rachel Li, a headhunter for a company named RiseHR.

As of Tuesday morning, these profiles were no longer available on LinkedIn. At least the first two institutes were also fake.

"There could be a large number of target individuals and fake profiles that have not yet been identified," the BfV still warned.

Reuters news agency said some of the fake profiles named by the BfV seemed to have made contact with senior diplomats and politicians from various European countries. But it was unclear how far this had gone.

German newspaper Die Zeit reported that after a contact was established, the fake users would suggest exchanging information and issue invitations to attend seminars or conferences in China in the hope of obtaining sensitive information. Highly-valued sources could even be compensated financially, Die Zeit said.

The BfV has urged anyone who thinks they may have been targeted by such fake accounts to contact them.

(CGTN)