UPDATE: 40 new names added to the list of Western Australian business leaders whose details appear in a massive database being maintained by a Chinese company with government links.
Hundreds of prominent Western Australians, including politicians, judges and business leaders, are among those whose names and details appear in a massive database being maintained by a Chinese company with links to Beijing's military and intelligence networks.
The existence of the database was revealed yesterday after it was leaked to US academic Chris Balding, who is now based in Vietnam but had previously worked at Peking University.
Business News has obtained a list of more than 35,000 Australians for whom files have been kept, and has identified hundreds of prominent Western Australians among them.
The last six premiers of Western Australia appear on the list, along with a host of past and present politicians, most of the bench of the Supreme Court, a large number of people involved in business in this state and several other high-profile figures, including some convicted of serious crimes. Many of their spouses and partners are also listed.
But the utility of the list comes into question when the names of several long-deceased figures also appear, including Gough Whitlam, share tipster Rene Rivkin, philanthropist Richard Swannell, politician John D'Orazio and even track king Albert Edmund Cockram, who died in 1943.
The database was created by Shenzhen-based Zhenua Data, which counts various arms of the Chinese government among its clients. The database includes dates of birth, addresses, political associations, marital status and even photographs of its targets, and it was reported yesterday that the data had been collated from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok accounts, as well as other public sources of information using scraping techniques.
It was unclear to what use the information would be put.
The database was given by Dr Balding to cyber security firm Internet 2.0, which re-formatted some of the data so that it could be read.
Internet 2.0 chief executive Robert Potter said the database violated the privacy of millions of people.
"In the process they have mapped influence networks which score the children of politicians against a perceived value, they have mapped criminal networks from the cartels of Mexico, to the Yakuza of Japan. They have targeted janitors in sensitive university labs, identified intelligence officers, and psychologically profiled world leaders," he said in a written statement released to Business News.
"The resulting capability is diverse, a mess and incomplete. It is however, very useful for the targeting and collection of intelligence. It is also a massive violation of international norms of privacy for this to be collected by a company directly. What it also shows is how unprepared China is to be held to account."
The lists below include the names of people that Business News journalists were able to identify among the 35,000 Australians who were found in the list of 2.4 million people covered by the database. Thousands of other Australian names are still being worked through.
WA PEOPLE FOR WHOM FILES WERE FOUND
PAST & PRESENT WA POLITICIANS (IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER)
- Mark McGowan
- Peter Foss
- Max Trenorden
- John Day
- David Templeman
- Bill Marmion
- Norman Moore
- Peter Collier
- John Kobelke
- Richard Court
- Kim Hames
- Simone McGurk
- Matt Birney
- Troy Buswell
- Alan Eggleston
- Michael Keenan
- Barry Haase
- Brendan Grylls
- Allan Rocher
- Kim Chance
- Jim McGinty
- Nick Goiran
- Clive Brown
- Ken Travers
- John Halden
- Colin Barnett
- Dexter Davies
- Murray Cowper
- Paul Papalia
- Alannah MacTiernan
- Rita Saffioti
- Dean Nalder
- Campbell Nalder
- Mathias Cormann
- George Cash
- Michael Mischin
- Ross Lightfoot
- Simon O'Brien
- Mick Murray
- Fran Logan
- Colin Holt
- Tony McRae
- Graham Jacobs
- John D'Orazio
- Tom Stephens
- Ken Wyatt
- Andrew Hastie
- Tim Hammond
- Kim Beazley
- Albert Jacob
- Mike Nahan
- Ken Baston
- Carmen Lawrence
- Stephen Smith
- Scott Ludlam
PAST & PRESENT JUDGES
- David Malcolm
- Rene Le Miere
- Wayne Martin
- Jeremy Curthoys
- Robert Mazza
- Eric Heenan
- John Chaney
- Ken Martin
- Robert Nicholson
- Andrew Beech
- Stephen Hall
- Edwin Corboy
- Michael Buss
- Jeremy Allanson
- Graeme Murphy
- Paul Tottle
- Bruno Fiannaca
- James Edelman
- Robert Nicholson
POLICE
- Karl O'Callaghan
- Murray Lampard
GOVERNMENT FIGURES
- Mal Wauchope (former Public Sector Commission chief)
- Keiran McNamara (former Department of Environment & Conservation head)
- Mike Daube (Emeritus Professor in Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University)
- Allan Fels (former ACC chief)
- Nev Power (chair of National COVID-19 Commission Advisory Board)
- John Sanderson (former Governor of WA)
BUSINESS FIGURES
- John Poynton, chair of Poynton Stavrianou
- John Hartman, chief investment officer at Tattarang
- Jemma Green, co-founder at Power Ledger
- Michael Anghie, CEO at APM Group
- Zhenya Tsvetnenko, former executive chairman of DigitalX
- Nigel Satterley, chief executive of Satterley Property Group
- John Welborn, managing director of Resolute Mining
- Maryna Fewster, chief executive of Seven West Media WA
- Chris Ellison, managing director of Mineral Resources
- John Flecker, CEO of Multiplex
- Peter Bradford, managing director of IGO
- Graeme Stanway, founding partner at VCI
- Rod Jones, founder of Navitas
- Geoff Pritchard, executive chairman of Go Capital
- George Gelavis, co-founder of Hoppr
- Graeme Martin, co-founder of Power Ledger
- Tony Grist, principal of Albion Capital Partners
- Raffaele Germano, CEO of Nanollose
- Wayne Best, executive chair of Nanollose
- Winton Willessee, non-executive chairman of Ding Sheng Xin Finance Co
- Andrew Hagen, co-founder of Cycliq
- Brodie McCulloch, founder of Spacecubed
- Mike Cadogan, co-founder of Vocortex
- Paul Ostergaard, CEO of Norwood Systems
- Tyler Spooner and Brendon Lai, founders of Uno Group
- Juan Otero, Uno Group adviser
- Anthony Manning-Franklin, founder of Gigger
- Tim Brewer, CEO of Functionly
- Todd Zani, co-founder of Ezeatm
- Peter Van Bruchem, co-founder of Techboard
- Amir Farhand, CEO of Saw
- Larry Lopez, partner at Australian Venture Consultants
- Mark Goodwin, managing principal at Eaton Square
- Chris Gale, managing director of Latin Resources
- Doug Bester, founder of Sentient Computing
- Bruce McFadzean, managing director of Sheffield Resources
- Rueben Taylor, founder of Biznostics
- Tony Cunningham, founder of CPS Capital Group
- Andrew Ravenscroft, RSM tax services manager
- Rob Graham, managing director of Schrole Group
- Tommy Shin, CEO of Lateral Capital Ventures
- Sarah Coleman, managing director of ImpRes
- Michael Palassis, executive director of Paxon Group
- Terry Bowen, chair of operations group at BGH Capital
- Derek Hall, CFO at ZipTel
- Mark Thompson, managing director at Talga Resources
- Nicholas Power, CEO at Zettagrid
- Sam Birmingham, non-executive director at StartupWA
- Clay Cook, CEO at Bonfire Group
- Gavin Lockyer, managing director at Arafura Resources
- John Clegg, CFO at RemSense
- Michael Ioannakis, marketing and strategy manager at Georgiou
- Grant and Sharon Grosser, co-founders of SEQTA
- Abdullahi Alim, Young Australian of the Year (WA) in 2017
- Michael Drake-Brockman, managing director at BEC Engineering
- Marcus Tan and Adam Yap, co-founders of HealthEngine
- Helen Zimmerman, executive general manager at Navitas
- Will Dix, managing director of Todd River Resources
- Justin Strharsky, director of Unearthed
- Adam Lamond, executive director of Aqura Technologies
- Garry Back, executive chairman of INX Software
- Quinton De Klerk, Cube Consulting partner
- Mike Pivac, chief executive officer at FBR
- Nathan Hood, co-founder of Carbon Group
- Kevin Baum, founder of TikForce
- Ken Brindsen, managing director of Pilbara Minerals
- Matthew Dunstan, CEO at Last Yard
- Gary Pennefather, COO at Spectur
- Tony Girgis, managing director at Brownes Foods
- Krystal Skinner, general manager of customer experience at Horizon Power
- David Buckingham, former CEO at Navitas
- Brendan Hammond, chairperson at Pilbara Development Commission
- Greg Forbes, CEO of Wood Group Ausia
- Peter McUtchen, CEO of Parkd
- Liam Poli, co-founder of Offpeak Games
- Adam Geoghegan, founder director of Immersia
- Nathan Chapman, general manager of production and sourcing at Advance Nanotek
- Ian Testrow, CEO of Emeco Group
- Martin Alciaturi, CFO at Aquila Resources
- John Dorrington, director at Clayko Group
- Stewart Washer, executive chair at Cyanata Therapeutics
- Sam Craig, development director at MiPlan
- Howard Digby, non-executive chairman at Omni Market Tide
- Rob Nathan, founder of Australian Tenders
- Mark Shelton, non-executive director at Global Civil and Mining
- Chris Norman, co-founder Humm Tech
- David Cake, former chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia
- Eli Bernstein, executive partner at CryptIQ
- Zane Prickett, director, Unearthed
- Jeff Broun, founder, Private Company Platform
- Peter Pawlowitsch, chairman, Family Zone Cyber Safety
- Kim McArthur, enterprise transformation lead of ANZ Utilities
- James Chomley, general manager of JSW Australia
- Simone Woolston, technical manager of JSW Australia
- Les Pereira, non-executive director of Estrella Resources
- Raj Gautam, CEO of YUPIT
- Josh Puckridge, non-executive chairman of Blaze International
- Jordan Holzmann, technology group lead at Telstra
- Bryan Vyner, chief technical officer at Cruxcee
- Allen Gerber, manager of retail sales at Synergy
- Karen Hollywood, director of Humaan
- Charlie Caruso, executive officer of Climate Outcomes Foundation
- Mark Lapins, former director of Quantify Technology
- Jenni Conroy, managing director of Future Effect
- Michael Steen, head of in service support at Austal
- Paul Lovegrove, global head of recruitment at Navitas
- Barnaby Egerton-Warburton, managing director of BXW Capital Venture Group
- Mark Delongis, VP pre-sales at InfoVista
- Jakub Felinski, founder of Fleetsu
- Gwendal Pouliquen, front-end developer at GeoMoby
- Kevin Balloch, CFO at Base Resources
- Tony Rovira, managing director at Azure Minerals
- Robert Rubery, IT support engineer at DevOps
- Brett Hartmann, manager of digitisation & technology at Murray & Roberts
- Gry Stene, founder of STEAM Engine Global
- Kirsty Koevort, senior production officer at UWA
- Scott Gallon from hitechsecurity
- Troy Kerwood, senior consultant at Lateral
- Sachee Perera, growth and partnerships at Perth is OK
- Ari Zagnoev, CEO at Combimouse
- Lori Tyrrell, owner and chief people officer at Beyond15 People
- James Cosford, technical lead at GeoMoby
- Marcel Hilmer, CFO at Vimy Resources
- Fabian Le Gay Brereton, general manager of digital and advisory at ERM Power
OTHERS
- Former Perth Archbishop Barry Hickey
- Lord mayoral candidate Di Bain
- Football player agent Paul Peos
- Lawyer Ron Cannon
- Former Perth lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi
- Former Dowerin CEO Dacre Alcock
- Former broker Damian Conboy
- Former broker Colin Hebbard
