A hacker has claimed to have "stored" a trove of personal information from Shanghai police on a billion Chinese citizens.

According to foreign media, the anonymous internet user identified as "ChinaDan" posted on the hacker forum Breach Forums last week offering to sell more than 23 terabytes (TB) of data for 10 bitcoins, equivalent to by about $200,000.

"The databases contain information on 1 billion Chinese residents and several billion case records, including: name, address, place of birth, national ID number, mobile number, all crime/case details," it said. as stated in the description.

Reuters said it was unable to verify the authenticity of the post, while the government and the Shanghai police department did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Reuters was also unable to contact the self-proclaimed hacker, ChinaDan, but the post was widely discussed on China's Weibo and WeChat social media platforms over the weekend with many users worried it could be genuine.

Kendra Schaefer, head of technology policy research at Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China, said in a tweet that it was "difficult to sift truth from rumours".

But if the material the hacker claimed came from the Ministry of Public Security, it would be bad for "a number of reasons," Schaefer said.

"Clearly it would be among the biggest and worst violations in history," she was quoted as saying.

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Telegraph

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