A former police officer in the Huangyan district public security bureau in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, has been criminally detained on charges of infringing personal information after allegedly installing a GPS device on his boss's car to track him and expose a sex scandal.

Chi Wen, 44, was accused of tracking Zhou Xianghui, who was his boss between March and July last year, and filming sex acts between Zhou and his lover. Chi offered the evidence to the district commission for discipline inspection, according to district's publicity department.

According to the Linhai city public security department in Taizhou, Chi and nine accomplices frequently tracked Zhou starting in 2015 and secretly made videos. They also used their positions to illegally obtain 1,000 pieces of information on Zhou's whereabouts and cars.

The case is still being investigated, the police said.

In recent years, some people have attached GPS locators to the cars of officials to track them and take photos exposing illegal behavior - either for extortion or revenge. But for some, the tables were turned, and the accusers have been hit with charges of invading the privacy of their targets.

If people are convicted of selling, offering or obtaining private information through illegal means, they will face up to three years in jail, said Li Wei, a lawyer from the Beijing Lawyers Association.

"If the circumstances are serious, such as when a large amount of information or money is involved, or if the result involves major economic losses, sentences can run from three to seven years," she said.

Zhou was suspended from his job as deputy director of the public security bureau in Huangyuan district because of the sex scandal, and has been the subject of a probe by disciplinary officials of the Communist Party of China over graft and "serious violations of Party discipline", the Huangyan district watchdog said.

Chi was hired by the Huangyan public security bureau in 1977 as a police officer. He was quoted by thepaper.cn on Monday as saying that for the past 40 years he felt that Zhou, his boss, didn't appreciate him and passed him over for promotions. When he heard that Zhou was involved in an extramarital affair with a woman, he planned to obtain evidence and expose him.

In a separate development, four other people were charged with improper use of personal information by the Tianxin district people's procuratorate in Changsha, Hunan province.

In October, the main suspect, surnamed Li, together with three associates, allegedly attached GPS locators to the private cars of local government officials or directors of State-owned enterprises with the intent to follow them and photograph them engaged in improper behavior and then extort money in exchange for keeping quiet.

They targeted six officials at State-owned companies in Changsha. In March, when they changed the locators because of low batteries in the underground garage of a State-owned company, they were discovered by a security guard. They were subsequently detained by police.

They tracked others' vehicles to get their whereabouts through illegal means for the purpose of committing crimes, and are accused of illegally obtaining personal information, according to the Tianxin district people's procuratorate in Changsha.

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