A Taiwanese court has kept three defendants locked up or barred from leaving the country in a case involving stolen personal data on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and alleged spying for China — bad news for the accused, and a sign Taiwan is treating data theft as a security threat.

• Taipei's district court rejected bail for two men and refused to lift a travel ban on a third.
• The main defendant is accused of buying huge amounts of Taiwanese personal data off the dark web and posting private details of Jensen Huang and a Taipei city councillor online.
• Prosecutors say he also passed a Yunlin county leader's private travel plans to a Chinese Communist Party propaganda official who runs intelligence work on Taiwan.
• The case started with a Taipei policewoman accused of illegally looking up personal records, and now covers 12 people charged with data, corruption, and national security crimes.
• The court said the men's computer skills make it likely they would offend again, and that their stories conflict with their co-defendants'.

Outlook: The defendants can appeal the rulings, but the case has not yet reached trial, so detention looks set to continue.