Constitutional Court Dismisses Petition Over Providing Immigration Biometric Data to Private AI Training

170 Million Items of Personal Data Provided to Private Companies Without Consent

The Constitutional Court has dismissed a constitutional petition claiming that it is unconstitutional for the government to allow private companies to use biometric information collected during immigration procedures at airports.

Immigration checkpoint at Incheon International Airport. Incheon International Airport

On the afternoon of the 26th, the Constitutional Court, sitting in the Grand Court in Jongno-gu, Seoul, unanimously dismissed the constitutional complaint filed by applicants whose biometric and other personal information had been collected, titled "constitutional review of personal data processing through the use of biometric information." A dismissal means the proceedings are terminated without a hearing on the merits when the court finds that the requirements for filing the petition have not been properly met.

Previously, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Science and ICT used personal information of Korean and foreign nationals collected during immigration screening as part of the "Artificial Intelligence (AI) Identification and Tracking System Development Project" that has been promoted since 2019. It is known that 1.7 billion items of personal data were provided, without the consent of the data subjects, to 24 private companies for AI training and algorithm verification.

In response, the applicants filed two constitutional petitions between December 2021 and July 2022. They argued that biometric information such as facial recognition data is highly sensitive information closely linked to the data subject's personal rights, and therefore infringes on human dignity and the right to pursue happiness, the right to informational self-determination, and the right to privacy and freedom of private life.

However, the Constitutional Court held that "the project using the facial data at issue in this case as training data ended in December 2021, and the facial data was destroyed in March 2022," and therefore found that the applicants' interest in the protection of their rights had lapsed.

The court added, "This project was halted and has already been terminated in the course of the social controversy spreading due to media reports and issues raised by civil society, and the Minister of Justice has also stated, through written opinions and responses to fact-finding inquiries, that there are no plans to resume a project in the same or similar form," and "Based on the circumstances revealed so far, it is difficult to conclude that there is a concrete risk that such conduct will be repeated in the future."

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