"Obtained Civil Complaint Documents but Another Person's Resident Number... Personal Information Leak Due to Government24 Error"

Ministry of the Interior and Safety: "Identifying Error Causes to Revise and Improve the System"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

An error occurred on Government24 that issued other people's civil complaint documents, resulting in the late revelation of the leakage of a large amount of personal information.

According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on the 5th, an error occurred in early last month on Government24 when issuing academic transcripts and tax payment certificates, where documents belonging to other people were issued. The documents reportedly contained personal information such as other people's names, resident registration numbers, addresses, and tax payment details.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety explained, "Through system inspection, we confirmed that some civil complaint certificates were misissued due to errors in the linked system," and added, "The misissued civil complaint documents were immediately deleted, and the affected parties were promptly informed according to related procedures." They also added, "We identified the cause of the error at that time, modified and supplemented the system, and currently, documents are being issued normally."

However, the Ministry did not disclose the exact scale, timing, or cause of the leakage. Some media reported that the leakage scale reached 1,400 cases. The Ministry explained, "It is less than what was reported."

Incidents related to government administrative networks continue without pause. In November last year, a blackout occurred in the administrative computer network including Government24, and the 4th generation NEIS (National Education Information System) launched by the Ministry of Education in June of the same year has seen frequent errors, significantly lowering satisfaction among teachers, parents, and students.

The 'Next-generation Local Tax Revenue Information System,' which handles local taxes and non-tax revenue tasks and was launched in February this year, also caused inconvenience to citizens and public officials due to repeated large and small errors for over a month after its launch.