Alleged 'Wolseong Data Deletion' Official's Side Asks, "Is There a Rule Prohibiting PC Document Deletion?"

Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant, Yangnam-myeon, Gyeongju City Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] In the trial regarding the deletion of data from the Wolseong Unit 1 nuclear power plant, a key issue has emerged as to whether documents deleted from work computers but remaining on online servers can be considered as 'data deletion.'

On the 31st, the Criminal Division 11 of Daejeon District Court (Presiding Judge Park Heonhaeng) held the 5th hearing for three defendants, including Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy director-level official A (53) and secretary B (45), on charges of damaging public electronic records, violating the Board of Audit and Inspection Act, and unlawful entry, and conducted witness examination.

Previously, they were indicted on charges of deleting data related to the Wolseong nuclear power plant in November 2019 to obstruct the Board of Audit and Inspection's audit.

On this day, A's defense attorney questioned another Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy official C, who appeared as a witness, asking, "Is there a regulation prohibiting the person in charge from deleting documents from the PC?"

At the same time, they presented circumstances suggesting that "the relevant files were on the web disk during the Board of Audit and Inspection's audit." This was to argue that the charges could not be acknowledged based on the fact that the files existed in compressed form on the Ministry's web disk (cloud/online server storage space).

C responded to this question by saying, "As far as I know, there is no such regulation." C is the person who used the PC from which B deleted the data in the office.

Thereafter, the defense side specifically explained the timing when the compressed files were uploaded to the online server. They also mentioned that employees exchanged nuclear power plant-related files via messenger outside official working hours, asserting that the charge of unlawful entry should also not be accepted.

The court plans to continue the witness examination on July 21 and July 12.

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