[Exclusive] PIPC likely to sanction Coupang next week for poor personal information management

By Park Gyu Jun

Coupang, which has 9 million paid-up members, caused a controversy late last year, due to the leakage of personal information of its customers and deliverymen.

Since then, the personal information watchdog launched investigations. It will soon draw a final conclusion which is highly probable to be a sanction against the company.

The final decision on whether or not to punish Coupang will be made by the end of this month at the earliest.

The Personal Information Protection Committee (PIPC), a central administrative body supervising personal information policies, decided to discuss possible measures against Coupang’s personal information leakage at a plenary meeting on Nov. 30 at the earliest.

This will be discussed no later than mid-December.

The PIPC had initially sought to discuss this issue no later than late September, but the discussion was reportedly delayed, as Coupang asked the committee to allow more time for submitting its written opinion.

Regarding Coupang’s personal information leakage, the PIPC looked into three cases.

The committee probed Coupang mobile app’s display of user addresses and other private data to different users in October last year. At that time, CEO Kang Han-seung made an apology.

The committee also investigated Coupang Eats’ allegation of sending text messages on membership registration in October last year to unaffiliated restaurant owners.

In November last year, personal information of Coupang Eats’ deliverymen was disclosed to restaurant owners affiliated with the company.

The PIPC secretary general’s office supervising investigation divisions is said to consider that Coupang neglected its duty to take safety measures. The duty is specified on the Article 29 of the Personal Information Protection Act.

The office reportedly saw that Coupang was insufficient in fulfilling its duty as a personal information manager, who shall establish an internal administration plan and take other safety measures to prevent personal information leakage.

According to the Article 75 of the Act, up to 50 million won ($37,000) administrative fine can be imposed on anyone who violated the duty, and additional penalty surcharges can be imposed on the personal information manager, depending on the PIPC’s decision.

In general, items put on agenda by the secretary general’s office have been passed at a plenary meeting without amendment.

*This was translated from the article originally written in Korean. For more accurate information, please refer to the original version by using the link below. In case of discrepancies between the two versions, the Korean version shall prevail.

https://n.news.naver.com/article/374/0000311376

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