How does applying direct to a public university at one time, later to receive an e-mail inviting another job application for a vacancy at said university, along with the e-mail addresses of around 50 fellow foreign jobseekers who had applied to there for jobs previously, sound to you?
And the instigator of said security breach was none other than a naive Chinese teacher of English employed by the university to be the waiban and recruiter of foreign teachers!
How to avoid that kind of situation? I don't think you can. As another poster has said already, there's no privacy in China!