Coupang "Data Stored in Korea... No Transfer to China" Rebuttal
[Asia Economy Reporter Joesulgina] Claims have been raised that the personal information stored on Coupang, the platform most used by our citizens, is at risk of being entirely transferred to China. Among the top five domestic platform companies known as ‘Nekarakuba,’ Coupang is the only one storing data in China, where concerns about personal information leakage are high. On the other hand, Coupang officially refuted these claims, stating that customer information is stored in Korea and that no personal information is transferred or stored in China.
On the 26th, National Assembly Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Committee member Yang Jeongsuk revealed that the personal and location information stored in the Coupang app, used by tens of millions of our citizens, is at risk of being fully transferred to China through the Chinese company ‘Hanlim Network Co., Ltd.’
Coupang is the largest shopping app in Korea, with an average daily user base of 9 to 10 million people. Upon app registration, users must provide personal information such as name, date of birth, contact details, email, as well as address, nickname, account number, password, and even highly sensitive information like childbirth details.
Yang’s office claimed that Coupang transfers and stores this critical information to a Coupang subsidiary in China called ‘Hanlim Network (Shanghai/Beijing) Co., Ltd.’ Once personal information is transferred to China, it must, in principle, be stored within China under China’s Network Security Law. If the data is to be transferred to another country, it must pass a stringent ‘security assessment’ concerning national security and social public interest.
Furthermore, since Chinese authorities do not regulate information collected or monitored by the government, there is a high risk of information leakage as the data stored in China can be accessed at any time under the ‘Personal Information Protection Law.’ Previously, Google provided 3 out of 43 information requests made by the Hong Kong government in the second half of 2020 on September 13, turning such concerns into reality.
Due to these risks, the UK Parliament opposed the launch of ‘Didi Chuxing,’ known as the Chinese version of Uber, to prevent the leakage of its citizens’ data to China. Among the top five domestic platform companies, except for Coupang, Naver, Kakao, Line, and Baedal Minjok store their data in third countries to avoid information leakage. Notably, Naver deleted all information in Hong Kong and moved its backup servers to Singapore after concerns about user data leakage arose following the passage of the Hong Kong National Security Law in July 2020.
Yang Jeongsuk stated, “Not only highly sensitive information of our citizens but also core data crucial to the data economy could fall out of our control and be transferred to China,” adding, “We must never allow the massive amounts of data, which are the driving force of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and directly linked to national security, to be handed over to another country.” She urged Coupang to promptly prepare countermeasures.
According to Yang, Coupang does not publish an annual transparency report. This report is regularly prepared and disclosed by companies to communicate smoothly with customers and build trust by providing statistics on government requests for user information and content removal. Since Google first published such a report in 2010, global companies like Twitter, Yahoo, Facebook, and Apple have followed suit, and domestic companies such as Naver and Kakao have also joined.
In response, Coupang immediately denied the claims. In its ‘Coupang’s Position on Personal Information Leakage’ statement released that day, Coupang said, “Coupang’s customer information is stored in Korea, and no personal information is transferred or stored in China.” It added, “Hanlim Network is a Coupang affiliate (Coupang (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Coupang (Beijing) Co., Ltd.) where global IT talents handle development tasks,” emphasizing, “The claim that customer data is stored through this company is completely false.”
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