AI Chatbot 'Iruda' Personal Information Leak Class Action Lawsuit Officially Begins... Over 300 Participants

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] Victims claiming that their personal information was leaked during the development and service process of the AI chatbot 'Iruda' have begun formal collective lawsuit procedures.

According to the IT industry on the 22nd, about 300 people will initially participate in the 'Iruda Personal Information Leakage Damage Case' collective lawsuit. As of 6 p.m. the previous day, 286 people had applied on the lawsuit recruitment page of the joint lawsuit platform 'Hwanan Saramdeul'.

The legal representative, law firm Taerim, stated, "We have closed the initial application and will consider whether to recruit additional participants later."

Scatter Lab previously collected users' KakaoTalk conversations through dating analysis apps 'Yeonae-ui Gwahak' and 'Textat' to create AI chatbots such as 'Iruda'. They collected about 10 billion KakaoTalk conversations and selected 100 million of them to form Iruda's database.

However, suspicions arose that personal information collected was not properly managed, as phone numbers and addresses appeared during users' conversations with Iruda. The victims requested that both the original 10 billion KakaoTalk database and the 100 million Iruda database be preserved as evidence.

Scatter Lab is currently under investigation by the Personal Information Protection Commission regarding the personal information leakage allegations. After the investigation, they plan to destroy the deep learning model and the 100 million Iruda database. The victims hastened to file the evidence preservation request, fearing that if Scatter Lab damages or destroys the Iruda database, it may be difficult to prove damages later.

Evidence preservation requests are usually decided by the court within about a week. However, since similar precedents are rare in this case, the judge may hold a hearing to hear Scatter Lab's position and follow other procedures. The victims plan to preserve as much evidence as possible through the court first, and then file a damage compensation lawsuit according to the government investigation results.