National Assembly Science and ICT Committee to Conclude Session on 24th, Adopts 'Kim Beom-su, Lee Hae-jin, Choi Tae-won' as Witnesses

Agreement and Resolution by the Secretary at the Full Meeting on the 17th

Kim Beom-su, Chairman of Kakao, appeared as a witness at the National Assembly's audit on the Korea Communications Commission held by the Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Committee on November 21, 2021, and responded to questions from lawmakers. Photo by Yoon Dong-ju doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] Regarding the 'Kakao outage' incident caused by the fire at the Pangyo data center, Kim Beom-su, founder (chairman) of Kakao; Lee Hae-jin, Global Investment Officer (GIO) of Naver; and Choi Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, are scheduled to be summoned as witnesses for the National Assembly audit.

On the 17th, Jeong Cheong-rae, chairman of the National Assembly Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee, announced at the plenary meeting, "On the 24th, during the comprehensive audit of the Ministry of Science and ICT, we will approve a proposal to request the attendance of witnesses including Choi Tae-won, chairman of SK, Kim Beom-su, chairman of Kakao, Lee Hae-jin, Naver GIO, Park Seong-ha, CEO of SK C&C, Hong Eun-taek, CEO of Kakao, and Choi Soo-yeon, CEO of Naver."

The ruling and opposition party secretaries of the committee reached this agreement after continuing discussions from the morning regarding the selection of witnesses for the National Assembly audit related to the SK C&C Pangyo data center fire, which caused the service disruption of Kakao and Naver.

The same atmosphere was sensed the previous day. Park Seong-jung, a ruling party secretary and member of the People Power Party, said, "The co-CEOs of Kakao (Nam Goong-hoon and Hong Eun-taek) will definitely be summoned as witnesses for the comprehensive audit on the 24th," adding, "Whether to summon founder Kim will be negotiated today as the problem occurred."

Opposition party secretary Cho Seung-rae of the Democratic Party also stated, "We need to hear from the Kakao group why the recovery was not swift, the background of the incident including backup network construction, and their future plans and stance," and added, "We will also ask how they plan to compensate for the damages caused by this outage." He emphasized the necessity of selecting witnesses by mentioning SK C&C's responsibility.

The Kakao outage incident occurred around 3:30 p.m. on the 15th when a fire broke out at the SK C&C Pangyo data center where Kakao is housed.

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT, as of 6 a.m. on the 17th, recovery has progressed to about 95%. Kakao announced that among its 13 major services, 4 (Kakao Pay, Kakao Games, Kakao Webtoon, and Zigzag) have been fully restored, and the other 9 services are partially recovering functions. In particular, KakaoTalk's image, video, and file transfer functions have been restored with some speed degradation, and Kakao Subway, KakaoT taxi driver app, and KakaoT designated driver app have also been restored.

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