567 Victims of KB Kookmin Card Data Breach Will Not Receive Compensation

Law: "Statute of Limitations Expired for Filing Lawsuit"... First Defeat

Seoul Central District Court / Photo by Honam Moon munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] In relation to the 2013 incident where personal information of KB Kookmin Card customers was leaked, the court dismissed the case, stating that "the statute of limitations has passed, so compensation liability cannot be imposed." The reason was that the victims filed the lawsuit after the three-year period from the date they became aware of the damage had expired. This is the first case of defeat among several compensation claims filed separately by the victims of this incident.

According to the legal community on the 1st, Judge Do-young Jeong of Civil Division 33 at the Seoul Central District Court ruled this way in a compensation lawsuit filed by 567 victims, including Mr. Han, against KB Kookmin Card. Judge Jeong stated, "The victims did not file the lawsuit within the period during which they could exercise their rights," and "KB Kookmin Card's statute of limitations defense is valid, and the victims' claims are groundless, so all are dismissed." On the same day, Judge Jeong also ruled that the plaintiffs, the victims, must bear the litigation costs.

At KB Kookmin Card, customer information of 53.78 million card members was leaked in February and June 2013. The number of victims reached 222,561. The prosecution launched an investigation. As a result, Park, the general manager of KCB and the person responsible for developing the card company's accident analysis system, was found to have extracted customer information from the card company's business computer and handed it over to a marketing company. Park was sentenced to three years in prison by the court in 2014. Subsequently, the victims filed lawsuits in groups, claiming that KB Kookmin Card neglected its duty of care to prevent leaks by not encrypting customer information. The 567 plaintiffs, including Mr. Han, in this lawsuit were among them.

The court has so far recognized compensation of about 100,000 KRW per person for personal information leaks. In January 2016, the Seoul Central District Court ruled that 5,202 victims of information leaks from KB Kookmin Card, Nonghyup, and Lotte Card should be compensated 100,000 KRW each. This was the court's first ruling on the KB Kookmin Card information leak incident. Judge Jeong considered this ruling as a basis to conclude that the plaintiffs, including Mr. Han, were aware of the fact that their personal information was leaked and damage occurred by January 2016. Accordingly, they should have filed the lawsuit within three years from that point. However, the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit last year.

Meanwhile, most of the victims of this information leak incident filed lawsuits between 2014 and 2015, and the Supreme Court confirmed compensation rulings. KB Kookmin Card is reported to have completed compensation to the plaintiffs who won according to this Supreme Court decision.

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