(FiveNation.com)- The CEO of the software company Konnech, Eugene Yu, was arrested in relation to the data storage on Chinese servers.
According to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón, Yu, 51, was detained early on Tuesday outside of Lansing, Michigan after prosecutors claimed he inappropriately kept the information on servers in China. Yu is anticipated to be extradited to Los Angeles in the upcoming days.
Konnech is accused of breaking its contract by storing vital data from employees on servers in China.
The district attorney’s office launched a “separate inquiry” this year that led to the prosecution’s discovery of the data breach. He refused to disclose the nature of the additional inquiry or the precise moment his office learned of the violation.
Konnech said they are still gathering information regarding Mr. Yu’s unjust detention by LA County officials.
The New York Times published an article on Monday saying that Konnech was the subject of a “conspiracy theory” by “election skeptics.” To support their allegations that Konnech “had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government back door access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States,” the article claimed that these “election deniers” had relied on “threadbare evidence.”
This accusation against Konnech, according to The Times, “demonstrates how far-right election skeptics are also turning more attention to new and more secondary companies and groups.”
Los Angeles County and Allen County, Indiana, have hired Konnech, a Michigan-based company, to handle “election logistics, such as scheduling poll workers.”
An organization dedicated to preserving election integrity, True the Vote, reported that they were able to download the personal data of roughly 1.8 million poll workers from servers located in China. The Times was forced to say on Tuesday that this data had actually been kept on Chinese servers
