SK Telecom's e-prescription service ruled legal by top court

The Supreme Court recently confirmed the ruling that said the SK Telecom Co. did not violate the law with its electronic prescription service that the company provided 14 years ago, court officials said Friday.

In a verdict reached last month, South Korea's highest court upheld the lower court's ruling that cleared SK Telecom of violating the Personal Information Protection Act and the Medical Services Act.

The e-prescription service in question was launched by the largest wireless carrier in the country in December 2010. This service had hospitals print out a barcode on its prescription paper, which the tech company stored in an encrypted form, before relaying the information to local pharmacies, which read the barcode.

But the system sparked concern over the patients' personal information being leaked, and the prosecution accused the company of illegally collecting and storing the personal information and leaking it to the pharmacy. A related investigation was launched in 2014 and the company was indicted in July 2015, forcing it to pull out of the e-prescription service business later that year.

The courts, however, have ruled in favor of SK Telecom, saying the company merely relayed the information from the hospital to the pharmacy, and cannot be regarded as having stored, processed or leaked sensitive information. An appellate court also said encrypted information of a patient's prescription cannot be regarded as sensitive information.

The recent ruling by the Supreme Court holds a significance in the ongoing talks about adding a legal clause about e-prescriptions. Prior to April's parliamentary elections, both the ruling and the main opposition parties vowed to push for a revision of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act that is currently pending at the National Assembly, which would provide legal grounds for the e-prescription service.

Kim Dae-jin, associate professor of pharmacy at Dongguk University, conducted a survey of 1,000 adults last year on what they thought of e-prescription services. About 87 percent of the respondents said they are open to using the services, according to Kim.

By Yoon Min-sik(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)