[Asia Economy Reporter Bu Aeri] The Korea Communications Commission has imposed a fine of 180 million KRW and a penalty of 6 million KRW on the Chinese application Tiktok for violating the Information and Communications Network Act.
On the 15th, the KCC held a plenary meeting at the Government Complex Gwacheon and made this decision.
Tiktok is a social networking service (SNS) that communicates through short 15-second videos. It is popular in Korea, with an average of 1.4 million daily users, but suspicions of personal information leakage have persisted.
Earlier, the Korea Communications Commission 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 corporation (refer to our December 30, 2019, front page).
The KCC confirmed violations such as 'obtaining legal guardian consent when collecting personal information of children under 14 years old (Article 31, Paragraph 1 of the Information and Communications Network Act)' and 'notification of overseas transfer of domestic users' personal information (Article 63, Paragraph 2 of the Information and Communications Network Act)' based on the investigation results.
According to the KCC, Tiktok was found to have collected at least 6,007 cases of personal information from children under 14 years old registered on the service. Additionally, Tiktok stored domestic users' personal information in the United States and Singapore but did not notify users of the 'act of transferring information overseas.' This constitutes a violation of the Information and Communications Network Act.
An Hyeonghwan, a standing commissioner of the KCC, emphasized, "Continuous monitoring of Tiktok is necessary even after corrective measures," adding, "We must remain vigilant about security concerns related to Tiktok and ensure they are resolved."
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