[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] Another court ruling has been made that Interpark, an online shopping mall, must compensate members who suffered personal information leaks with 100,000 KRW per person.
According to the legal community on the 14th, Judge Hee-geun Park of the Civil Division 90 at the Seoul Central District Court ruled partially in favor of the plaintiffs in a damages claim lawsuit filed by 337 Interpark members against Interpark. The court pointed out, "The plaintiffs' personal information includes names, gender, date of birth, and phone numbers," adding, "All of these can identify individuals and are closely related to private life, making it difficult to exclude the possibility of secondary damage occurrence and expansion." Furthermore, the court stated, "The defendant recognized that the plaintiffs' personal information was leaked but only notified the plaintiffs 14 days later, causing them to lose the opportunity to respond promptly to the personal information leak."
In May 2016, Interpark experienced a hacking incident through an internal PC, resulting in the leakage of information of more than 10 million members. Subsequently, some members claimed 200,000 KRW per person from Interpark, stating that mental damages occurred due to the personal information leak caused by the hacking. Interpark argued in court that there was no causal relationship between the hacking and the personal information leak, but the court did not accept this.
Previously, Interpark also lost a damages lawsuit filed by about 2,400 other members who suffered personal information leaks. At that time, the court ruled that Interpark must compensate the victims 100,000 KRW each. This ruling was finalized by the Supreme Court in March last year. Similarly, Interpark lost another lawsuit separately filed by 1,530 people.
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