KCC Imposes Fines on Five Companies Including Google for 'Child Safety Apps'

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) held a plenary session on the 28th and announced that it has issued corrective orders and imposed a total fine of 16.5 million KRW on five child safety app service providers, including Google Korea, for failing to obtain consent from children under 14 years old or notify them of the provision date and time when providing their personal location information to legal guardians.

Google Korea, while providing services using children's personal location information, did not obtain consent from the data subject, the child, regarding the terms of service, and did not notify or obtain consent from the data subject before providing personal location information to a third party, the legal guardian. As a result, it received a corrective order and a fine of 3 million KRW.

MobileFence and EightSniff did not obtain consent from the data subject for the terms of service, did not notify or obtain consent from the data subject regarding the provision of personal location information to third parties, and did not notify the data subject of the provision date and time when providing personal location information to a third party, the legal guardian. The KCC issued corrective orders and imposed fines of 4.2 million KRW each.

JT Communication did not notify or obtain consent from the data subject before providing personal location information to a third party, the legal guardian, and failed to notify the data subject of the provision date and time. It received a corrective order and a fine of 4.2 million KRW.

SafeFree did not notify the data subject of the provision date and time when providing personal location information to a third party, the legal guardian, and received a corrective order and a fine of 900,000 KRW.

The child safety apps of the three mobile carriers were confirmed to comply with the Location Information Act by obtaining consent from both the child and the legal guardian.

The KCC judged that the provisions related to the consent of legal guardians under the Location Information Act are somewhat similar in wording to the provisions of the Personal Information Protection Act, which could cause confusion among service providers. Therefore, for acts where only the legal guardian's consent was obtained without the child's consent, the KCC did not impose administrative fines or take prosecution measures but issued corrective orders to obtain the data subject's consent. For other violations, fines were imposed. This investigation into child safety apps by the KCC was conducted following a recommendation from the National Human Rights Commission in 2021 to verify whether the location tracking function through child safety apps infringes on children's privacy and other fundamental rights.

Kim Hyo-jae, Acting Chairman of the KCC, stated, “Child safety apps play a positive role in protecting the life or body of children,” adding, “Since the right to self-determination over personal location information of children is also a value that must be protected, it is necessary to establish a consent procedure for children under 14 years old.”