"Thermal Cameras for COVID-19 Prevention Do Not Store Facial Images"

Personal Information Protection Commission Establishes Operational Guidelines for Facial Recognition Live Capture Function

Citizens are checking their temperatures at AI facial recognition thermal cameras installed at the entrance of Seongdong-gu Office in Seoul before entering the building. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] Among thermal imaging cameras operated for the purpose of COVID-19 prevention and entry temperature checks, those equipped with facial recognition or real-face shooting functions are prohibited from storing facial video footage.

The Personal Information Protection Commission announced on the 5th that it has established and will implement the "Personal Information Protection Guidelines for Operating Thermal Imaging Cameras with Facial Shooting Related to COVID-19." These guidelines include compliance requirements under the Personal Information Protection Act to prevent excessive collection and misuse of personal information and to protect privacy, as there is a risk that video information (including faces) captured by thermal imaging cameras may be unnecessarily stored, managed, or transmitted.

The guidelines apply to thermal imaging cameras with temperature measurement functions that have real-face shooting capabilities enabling personal identification. Institutions and businesses installing and operating such thermal imaging cameras in public and private facilities must comply with these guidelines.

When installing and operating these cameras to check for COVID-19 symptoms such as fever, storing personal information such as facial videos is fundamentally prohibited. Camera shooting is only temporarily allowed for the simple purpose of checking for fever, and the functions for storing and transmitting footage must be turned off. For models that cannot disable storage and transmission functions, stored personal information must be destroyed at least once a day.

In cases where storing facial videos is unavoidable, clear notification and consent must be obtained from the subjects being recorded. Additionally, the scope of storage should be minimized, and safety measures such as preventing unauthorized viewing and leakage must be implemented. Recorded footage must be destroyed without delay once the purpose of processing personal information has been achieved.

Users captured by facial shooting thermal imaging cameras when entering multi-use facilities can check whether their personal information, such as their face, is being collected and stored, and may request deletion. If any leakage or misuse of personal information is discovered during this process, it can be reported to the Personal Information Infringement Report Center (dial 118 without area code or via the website privacy.kisa.or.kr).

Yoon Jong-in, Chairperson of the Personal Information Protection Commission, stated, "We ask camera installers, operators, manufacturers, and sellers to actively cooperate to ensure that the guidelines are faithfully implemented so that thermal imaging cameras can be used only for minimal purposes such as fever checks."

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