Seven prosecuted for eavesdropping on 14,140 mobile phone subscribers in Vietnam   This file photo shows a person using a mobile phone.AFP The Hanoi People’s Procuracy has issued an indictment to prosecute the ex-director of a technology company and six former staff members for spying on 14,140 mobile phone subscribers, using their Ptracker app, Vietnamese media said. According to the indictment, Nguyen Viet Hung, 41, hailing from Hanoi, ex-director of Viet Hong Technology Co. Ltd.; Le Thanh Lam, 33, former head of the firm’s Technical Department; and five ex-employees were charged with “illegally uploading information onto or using information on computer networks, telecommunications networks and Internet,” pursuant to Article 226 of the Penal Code. In 2013, Hung hired Lam for a month salary of VND20 million ($931) to create the Ptracker app to sell to the company’s clients, who could use the software to track other people’s Android phones, read their SMS messages and contact books, record their phone calls, and even turn on features like cameras, 3G or GPRS connections on the target devices.  But the customers who bought the software did not know that all of the data they covertly monitored from the handsets had been transferred to the server computer of Viet Hong at the disposal of the company’s employees. Lam completed the software with the aid of two of the five said employees. The three others were in charge of setting up a website to introduce and advertise the app, creating video clips to provide directions for its use, receiving and replying to queries from clients, and making deals and payment with them. Customers who bought the Ptracker app had to pay a premium to be granted an account to access the stolen data on Viet Hong’s server. The Ptracker app was installed on the mobile phones of 14,140 subscribers and the firm raked in nearly VND1 billion (US$46,550) from selling the software. The Hanoi prosecutor office has transferred the case to the local court for trial. TUOI TRE NEWS