Human Rights Commission: "Accessing Communication Data Without a Warrant and Failure to Notify Afterwards Constitutes a Human Rights Violation"

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] The National Human Rights Commission of Korea has ruled that investigative agencies accessing telecommunications subscribers' communication data without proper legal procedures through the courts and failing to notify the individuals concerned constitutes a violation of human rights.

On the 30th, the Human Rights Commission announced that it recommended the Minister of Science and ICT to establish appropriate control procedures, such as requiring court approval for requests for communication data and imposing notification obligations on users when amending the Telecommunications Business Act. It also recommended the Chief of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, the Prosecutor General, and the Commissioner General of the National Police Agency to respectively create or revise related manuals or guidelines to ensure that, even before the law is amended, requests for communication data are made only to the minimum extent necessary for investigations.

Previously, the Human Rights Commission received complaints that the Corruption Investigation Office and a local prosecutor's office and police station accessed their communication data without a warrant and did not notify them. The complainants also claimed that "the Corruption Investigation Office accessed communication data of a specific journalist and their family members in the second half of 2021." The Corruption Investigation Office and others explained that they obtained information by requesting communication data under the Telecommunications Business Act as part of preliminary investigations or investigations, which they considered voluntary investigative procedures. They also argued that since the law does not provide for a post-notification procedure, they did not notify the individuals.

However, the Human Rights Commission viewed the investigative agencies' actions of broadly requesting and obtaining communication data without a warrant and failing to notify the individuals as violations of the constitutional rights to pursue happiness and the privacy of personal life and communication secrecy. Furthermore, it judged these actions as violations of the principle of due process. The Commission stated, "Information subjects must be able to decide for themselves the extent to which their personal information is disclosed and used," and added, "Investigative agencies have an obligation to protect personal information during the process of identifying and collecting it for criminal investigations."