Human Rights Commission: "Serious Leakage of Personal Information of Complainants in Public Institutions... Need for Awareness Improvement"

National Human Rights Commission / Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Dong-hoon] The National Human Rights Commission recommended that the president of Corporation A, Mayor B, Mayor C, and others conduct job training on personal information protection for related employees, including the respondents, to prevent the leakage of complainants' personal information to third parties during the complaint handling process.

The complainant filed complaints with Corporation A and City Hall B, alleging that a person related to the complaint content called and made coercive remarks. Another complainant filed a complaint with City Hall C, stating that their delinquency information was sent to their spouse.

In response, Corporation A claimed that since the project for which the complainant filed the complaint was a resident-led project, they intended to explain the necessity of the project once again to the complainant and seek understanding and cooperation. Corporation A argued, "We gave the complainant's contact information to the resident promotion committee chairman, who is also a resident, and asked him to meet with the complainant as a more efficient way to resolve the complaint."

City Hall B stated, "We did provide the complaint details and the complainant's mobile phone number to a Corporation A contractor to resolve the complainant's issue, but this was part of the process to promptly address the received complaint." City Hall C claimed, "The complainant's spouse requested the delinquency details and amount via text message, so we informed them of the delinquency details by text."

The Human Rights Commission's Second Committee on Remedies for Rights Violations stated, "The respondents in this case are employees performing duties of public institutions and local governments, and unless it is an unavoidable case for performing duties according to relevant laws, they have the obligation to protect the complainant's personal information and privacy by preventing the leakage of personal information when handling complaints and payment tasks of the institution."

Furthermore, "Although the respondents argue that their purpose was to handle complaints more efficiently and promptly, it is difficult to consider this reason as an unavoidable case for performing duties under the Personal Information Protection Act, so it cannot be regarded as an exception to the provision of personal information to third parties."

Accordingly, the Human Rights Commission judged that the respondents' act of providing the complainant's personal information to third parties without the complainant's consent or prior explanation related to complaint handling infringed upon the complainant's right to self-determination regarding personal information. The Commission stated, "We hope this decision serves as an opportunity for public institution employees to recognize the importance of personal information protection."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.