'Corona Myeongbu' DB Seller Sentenced to 2 Years and 6 Months in First Trial

DB Seller Mr. A Sentenced for Violating Personal Information Protection Act
Sold Personal Data Labeled as 'Corona Myeongbu'
Court: "Potential for Abuse in Phishing Crimes"
Previously Imprisoned for Fraud in 2017

[Asia Economy Reporters Seongpil Cho, Seungyoon Song, Jeongyun Lee] A vendor who distributed millions of records under the name ‘Corona List’ in a database (DB) containing personal information has been sentenced to prison. This is the first trial conclusion of the illegal personal information distribution case revealed by Asia Economy’s report(Refer to the November 20, 2020 article '[Exclusive] "Selling Corona List"... 2 Million Personal Information Records Distributed').

According to the legal community on the 4th, Judge Se-young Oh of the Daejeon District Court Criminal Division 1 sentenced Mr. A, who was detained and prosecuted for violating the Personal Information Protection Act, to 2 years and 6 months in prison and a fine of 78.69 million KRW.

The court stated, "A significant amount of personal information was traded over a long period in a planned and secretive manner, and the compensation received was not insignificant," adding, "The information provided by the defendant is highly likely to be misused for crimes such as telephone financial fraud (voice phishing)."

Mr. A was arrested and prosecuted in January for selling a DB containing personal information such as names and phone numbers of unspecified many people via the messenger Telegram from August 2019 to December last year. He received the DB from an unidentified person, edited it arbitrarily by entering body temperatures, and labeled it as the Corona List. He then posted sales messages on social networking services (SNS) and sold the data to buyers who contacted him. The personal information Mr. A transferred using this method amounted to approximately 4.6 million records.

The prosecution requested the court to confiscate all the unfair profits Mr. A earned, totaling 145.45 million KRW. However, the court decided to confiscate only 78.69 million KRW due to lack of evidence.

The court ruled, "It is presumed that some of the proceeds from this crime are included," but "there is no standard or basis to distinguish between the proceeds from the crime and those not related, and no related investigation has been conducted."

The prosecution appealed this part citing unfair sentencing, and Mr. A also appealed the verdict. Mr. A had previously been sentenced to 1 year and 6 months in prison for fraud in November 2017 and was released from prison in March 2019 after serving his sentence.

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