"Author's Name and Birthdate Included" Controversy Over Gwangju Dong-gu Office Civil Complaint Leak

Suspicion of Delivering Captured Complaint Post to Stakeholders
"Interfering with My Business, I Won't Stay Still"

Photo by Gwangju Dong-gu Office [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Seohyun] A controversy has arisen over allegations that a public official at Gwangju Dong-gu Office leaked a complainant's private post.

According to the Gwangju Dongbu Police Station on the 4th, a complaint was filed the previous day claiming that "an employee of Gwangju Dong-gu Office leaked my complaint post to an interested party."

Mr. A, presumed to be a tenant of a rental apartment, posted a private complaint on the Dong-gu Office website's "Requests to the District Mayor" section on the afternoon of the 1st regarding corruption in the rental apartments in Gyelim-dong.

Mr. A wrote criticizing the Dong-gu Office's negligence, stating that "hundreds of millions of won in tenants' deposits should be deposited in the deposit account of the rental corporation of a rental apartment in Dong-gu, but there is no balance."

However, less than seven hours after Mr. A filed the complaint, an absurd incident occurred.

The full text of the post, which Mr. A had uploaded privately, was captured and delivered to interested party Mr. B. Mr. B sent the captured complaint post to Mr. A's acquaintances, contacting them with messages like "A is interfering with my business. I will not leave it alone."

Startled, Mr. A checked the captured complaint post received from acquaintances and found that it included the complainant's name and date of birth, information that could only be known if Dong-gu employees had viewed it. Normally, even if the author views their own complaint post, the date of birth is never shown, and only the surname is displayed among the names.

Mr. A stated, "Even the complainant can only see the surname when viewing the complaint post, but the captured copy included the full name," raising suspicion that "a public official viewed the private complaint post, captured it, and delivered it to the rental corporation's representative."

A Dong-gu Office official explained, "There is no record of who viewed the complaint post, so it is difficult to identify which employee captured and delivered it," adding, "While the district office manages the rental corporation, it does not manage the bank account details."

The police, having received the complaint, have launched an investigation and plan to ascertain the exact details through questioning the complainant.

Meanwhile, Article 10 (Confidentiality of Identity) of the Gwangju City Dong-gu Corruption Reporting Reception, Processing, and Whistleblower Protection Regulations states that "public officials shall not imply or disclose the personal information of the reporter or any fact that could lead to identifying the reporter to others."

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