Last Year’s Personal Information Dispute Resolution Applications Doubled Compared to the Previous Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] The Personal Information Protection Commission announced on the 17th that the number of personal information dispute mediation applications last year reached 870, doubling from 431 the previous year.

The personal information dispute mediation system was introduced to amicably resolve disputes related to personal information without litigation. The mediation decisions made through the Personal Information Dispute Mediation Committee have the same effect as a court settlement.

Excluding cases that were withdrawn or transferred to other agencies, mediation proceeded for a total of 214 cases last year, of which 152 were resolved through pre-mediation agreements or successful mediation.

The mediation success rate was 71%, an increase of 10 percentage points from 61% in 2018.

Among the 152 resolved cases, 77 resulted in compensation awards, with an average compensation amount of 390,000 KRW per case. The highest compensation amount was 5 million KRW.

The case with the highest number of applicants for the same incident last year was a dispute mediation application against Facebook, involving 181 participants.

The infringing parties in dispute mediation cases were overwhelmingly from the private sector at 88.7%, with the public sector accounting for 11.3%. The industry with the most infringement incidents was the information and communication sector, accounting for 35.4% of the private sector total. This was followed by finance and insurance at 18.4%, and manufacturing, sales, and transportation at 5.9%.

The most common types of infringement were collection without consent, use beyond the intended purpose or provision to third parties, and refusal to comply with access requests, in that order.

The Personal Information Protection Commission plans to revamp its system to allow applicants to view and verify mediation decisions online in response to the increasing trend of personal information infringement incidents. A 'preliminary self-diagnosis' feature will also be provided so applicants can check for personal information infringement before applying for dispute mediation.

Focusing on frequently occurring infringement types, the commission will actively propose policy improvements to the Personal Information Protection Commission or related ministries by identifying illegal practices or areas for system improvement from dispute mediation cases. Additionally, it plans to update the standards for calculating compensation within this year.

Yang Cheongsam, Director of the Investigation and Mediation Bureau at the Personal Information Protection Commission, said, "With the digital transformation and the normalization of non-face-to-face interactions due to COVID-19, public awareness of personal information has increased. We will continuously improve application convenience and mediation success rates."