[Column] Korea Communications Commission Hesitates Despite TikTok Personal Data Leak in China

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] The South Korean government's investigation into the personal information leakage of the Chinese application 'Tiktok' has been ongoing for over nine months without reaching a conclusion. Meanwhile, concerns about the leakage of personal information of domestic Tiktok users are growing. The government's procrastination contrasts sharply with the United States' strong stance of 'banning Tiktok use.'

Tiktok is a social networking service (SNS) based on 15-second short videos. It is popular in South Korea, with about 1.4 million daily users, but suspicions of personal information leakage have persisted. Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned, "If you want your personal information to fall into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party, use Tiktok."

Earlier, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) detected the possibility of personal information leakage from Tiktok and began an investigation in October last year by requesting cybersecurity threat-related data from Tiktok's Singapore local subsidiary (refer to our December 30, 2019, front page). The KCC recently reported the investigation results to the National Assembly, confirming potential violations such as 'failure to notify the overseas transfer of domestic users' personal information (Article 63, Paragraph 3 of the Information and Communications Network Act)' and 'collection of personal information of children under 14 without legal guardian consent (Article 31, Paragraph 1 of the Information and Communications Network Act),' and announced plans to proceed with administrative measures. In this regard, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) imposed a fine of $5.7 million (approximately 6.8 billion KRW) on Tiktok for illegal collection of children's personal information.

However, the South Korean government has not issued corrective orders or fines even two months after the investigation ended. The matter has not even been put on the agenda for the KCC meeting that decides such actions. A KCC official explained, "Although the investigation on Tiktok has concluded, there is an issue regarding the transfer to the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), and we are internally coordinating the timing of submitting the agenda to decide where to handle it." The PIPC, which will be newly launched in August by integrating information protection tasks previously scattered across ministries such as the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Financial Services Commission, may take over Tiktok-related duties, leading to inaction. If the KCC fails to put the Tiktok agenda on the table by July, the matter will be transferred to the PIPC, inevitably causing further delays. This is not a situation to delay while waiting for the PIPC's launch. For the protection of our citizens' personal information, decisive and prompt action must be taken.