"10,000 Requests to Delete My 'Heukyeoksa' Posts"

Personal Information Protection Commission Expands Support for 'Jiu-gae Service'
Deletion and Hiding of Online Posts Containing Private Information

# "I uploaded a video of myself dancing to a popular childhood dance, but I lost the password and can't delete it. The phone number I used to create the account has changed, so I can't recover the password."

# "I left my email address as a comment on a bulletin board of a site I used before, but I withdrew from the site without deleting it. Even now, when I search my email address, that comment and post appear, but I can't delete them even if I want to."

The Personal Information Protection Commission announced on the 10th that it will expand the support target for the 'Eraser Service,' which has been in pilot operation since last year. The Eraser Service is a service where the Commission helps delete or blind online posts containing personal information that was carelessly posted during childhood.

[Image provided by Personal Information Protection Commission]

The Commission will expand the application age for the Eraser Service from under 24 years old to under 30 years old. The period during which the eligible online posts were created will also be extended from under 18 years old to under 19 years old. Based on the age-specific population statistics from Statistics Korea (2022 Population Census), the number of eligible users for the service will increase by about 3 million compared to before.

About 10,000 applications were received for the Eraser Service during its pilot operation last year. By age group, 16?18 years old (high school students) accounted for 34.8% of the total, and those 15 years old and under (middle school students, etc.) accounted for 34.3%, showing little difference. Adults aged 19?24 accounted for 30.9%, indicating that mainly middle and high school students used the service.

By site, many deletion requests were for video posts uploaded to YouTube, TikTok, and others. In addition, deletion requests for posts on major social networking services (SNS) such as Naver (Knowledge iN, Cafes, etc.), Instagram, and Facebook accounted for a large proportion.

Yang Cheong-sam, Director of the Personal Information Policy Bureau at the Commission, said, "The Eraser Service will play an important role not only in providing practical help through online post deletion support but also in raising awareness of protecting personal information from childhood and adolescence. We will continue to make efforts to strengthen the protection of personal information for children and adolescents."

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