Chinese firm has data on 40,000 Brits including Boris Johnson and the Queen ‘to be used by spies’

Boris Johnson and the Queen are among 40,000 Britons listed on a database compiled by a Chinese tech firm with reported links to Beijing’s military and intelligence networks, it can be disclosed. 

Files on senior British politicians including the Prime Minister, members of the Royal Family, UK military officers and their families, and religious leaders are currently being stored by Zhenhua Data, a technology company based in Shenzhen, China as part of a ‘global mass surveillance system on an unprecedented scale’. 

It is understood the information was leaked to US academic Christopher Balding, who was previously based in Shenzhen but returned to America citing security concerns, and published by the professor online. 

The database is thought to be used by Chinese intelligence agencies for monitoring British civilians in a shock worldwide espionage campaign also affecting millions of people in the US, Canada, India and Japan.   

The names, dates of birth, educational and professional histories, criminal records and social media accounts of politicians, Royals, business people, academics, military officers, and civilians convicted of drug and terror offences are being harvested by Zhenhua for the reported benefit of the Chinese Communist Party.

Senior MPs are now calling on the UK Government to stamp out Chinese interference in UK society, with Foreign Affairs Select Committee chair Tom Tugendhat thundering: ‘This is an indication that they are now seeing the West, and particularly the United Kingdom, as the kind of sphere of influence in which they wish to have this level of granular detail.’

It comes amid heightened tensions between the UK Government and Beijing, as London accuses China of covering-up the outbreak of coronavirus and lost the international community precious time in its response to the pandemic.

Britain is also furious at China’s decision to impose new security laws in Hong Kong earlier this year which forbid secession, treason and collusion with foreign powers and allow for the prosecution of Hong Kong dissidents in mainland China. 

Files on senior British politicians including the Prime Minister, members of the Royal Family, UK military officers and their families, and religious leaders are currently being stored by Zhenhua Data, a technology company based in Shenzhen, China as part of a ‘global mass surveillance system on an unprecedented scale’

The names, dates of birth, educational and professional histories, criminal records and social media accounts of politicians, Royals, business people, academics, military officers, and civilians convicted of drug and terror offences are being harvested by Zhenhua for the reported benefit of the Chinese Communist Party 

It comes amid heightened tensions between the UK Government and Beijing, as London accuses the Chinese Government of covering-up the outbreak of coronavirus and lost the international community precious time in its response to the pandemic

Mr Tugendhat, who has also expressed fears he is being watched by the Chinese Government, said the data leak showed an ‘important change’ in Beijing’s approach to electronic surveillance.  

‘This is a further indication that their interest in UK politics has gone beyond the general and into the specific,’ the chairman told The Daily Telegraph. 

‘What’s clear is that the Chinese Government is seeking to get increasingly involved in politics abroad.

‘Many of us know, through direct targeting in a crude way, that attempts to influence the UK have gone beyond what was normal a few years ago, and this seems to indicate that private companies in China are being used as part of a wider information-gathering effort.’

The Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles, Prince William, Prince Harry, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Princess Anne, Zara Tindall and the late Princess of Wales Diana are all listed on Zhenhua’s comprehensive index – alongside their relations to each other. 

Most of Boris Johnson’s Cabinet including Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis are being tracked by the tech firm, as well as dozens of MPs including Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Sir Ed Davey, Esther McVey, Norman Lamb, Kate Forbes and Gisela Stuart.  

Tony Blair, his children, and the children of John Prescott, Amber Rudd, Dominic Grieve, Ed Vaizey, Menzies Campbell and Chris Philp are included, while the wives of Johnny Mercer and David Lidington are named.

Jennifer Mordaunt, the mother of former Defence Secretary Penny Mordaunt and a relative of Labour’s first Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowdon, is also listed by Zhenhua. 

There is also a partial family tree of Britain’s wartime hero Sir Winston Churchill, including his grandson – the former MP Sir Nicholas Soames, his granddaughter Arabella Churchill and greatgranddaughter Flora. 

The Chinese tech firm is also storing information on high-ranking officers in the UK Armed Forces, including General Sir Nick Carter, the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Lord Dannatt, former Head of the British Army, former First Sea Lord Sir George Zambellas and General Sir Richard Barrons, a former Head of the UK’s Joint Forces Command.

Information about UK and US warships, including tweets that name the location of the ships when docked in ports, is being kept by Zhenhua, as well as files about British diplomats and their families posted around the world – including Dominick Chilcott, the British Ambassador to Turkey. 

Thousands of profiles of British business people working at some of the UK’s biggest companies have been scraped together – such as Tesco, BP, Barclays, KPMG, GLAXOSMITHKLINE, British American Tobacco, British Gas, AstraZeneca and Unilever. 

More than 200 people with professional connections to HSBC, which declared support for China’s draconian new security laws in Hong Kong imposed by Beijing earlier this year, are also being monitored.

Roger Carr, the chairman of BAE Systems, Britain’s biggest manufacturer and supplier of weapons, is listed in the database, while data on two employees of UK defence company Babcock International is also being kept. 

Richard Desmond, the property tycoon and Tory donor, is listed in the files as a businessman. 

Zhenhua’s database also contains thousands of mentions of British universities including Oxford and Cambridge, Imperial College London, UCL and Durham.

The families of Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis are included on the list, while files also exist on the late actor Richard Attenborough, Lord Lloyd-Webber’s mother, Siân Lloyd, the television presenter, and the wife of Gareth Bale, the Welsh footballer – in an apparent nod to UK culture.  

More to follow.