LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County prosecutors have accused the CEO of a small Michigan software company of compromising the personal information of hundreds of county elections employees.
Eugene Yu, 51, was arrested early Tuesday just outside of Lansing, Michigan, after prosecutors alleged he improperly stored the information on servers in China, according to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón. Yu, who is the chief executive officer of a company named Konnech, is expected to be extradited to Los Angeles in the coming days, Gascón said.
Los Angeles County awarded Konnech a contract in 2020 to store employee payroll and scheduling data using its PollChief software, according to Gascón. Under the five-year contract valued at nearly $3 million, Konnech was not supposed to store information outside the U.S., Gascón said.
“Konnech allegedly violated its contract by storing critical information that the workers provided on servers in China,” Gascón said. “We intend to hold all those responsible for this breach accountable.”
It did not appear any of the information had been sold, and Gascón said Yu’s alleged actions had not compromised an election’s integrity.
Prosecutors learned of the data breach earlier this year through a “separate investigation,” according to Gascón. He would not say what the other investigation was or exactly when his office became aware of the breach.
An email to the L.A. County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s office seeking comment was not immediately returned Tuesday. A person who answered the phone at Konnech’s offices in Michigan said a company spokesperson or attorney was not immediately available for comment.
Konnech had become the target of unfounded conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election recently, according to a New York Times report published Monday. Election deniers have claimed that the small company has ties to the Chinese Communist Party and gave the Chinese government access to the personal information of 2 million poll workers, according to the New York Times report, which said there was no evidence of those claims.
Konnech employees began receiving death threats and Yu denied all allegations of wrongdoing in an interview with the New York Times. He told the newspaper all of its information was stored on American servers. Yu, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1986, went into hiding because of threats, according to the report.
