Application Age Expanded Early This Year... 17,000 Cases Received
Youth Under 15 Account for 34.3%, the Highest Proportion
The government’s ‘Jiu-gae’ service, which supports the deletion and blind processing of online posts containing personal information written during childhood and adolescence, has marked its first year of implementation. It has been confirmed that the number of Jiu-gae service applications has reached about 17,000.
Jiu-gae is a service that guarantees the ‘digital right to be forgotten’ for children and adolescents. In other words, it allows individuals to request the deletion of digital records containing false information, personal attacks, or defamatory content about themselves. Currently, anyone under the age of 30 can apply for Jiu-gae. Since starting as a pilot project last year, the Personal Information Protection Commission expanded the age eligibility from under 24 to under 30 earlier this year.
However, assistance for deletion is only available for posts containing personal information such as name and date of birth written during minority (under 19 years old). If the post does not contain personal information or was written at age 19 or older, guidance is provided on how the individual can delete it themselves.
According to recent statistics from the Personal Information Protection Commission, from April last year to the 30th of last month, there were 17,148 applications for the Jiu-gae service, of which 16,518 were completed. By age group, those aged 16?18 (high school students) accounted for 34.8% of the total, while those 15 and under (middle school students, etc.) made up 34.3%. Adults aged 19?24 accounted for 30.9%, showing that mainly middle and high school students used the service.
By platform, deletion requests for video posts uploaded on YouTube, TikTok, and others were the most common. In addition, deletion requests for posts on social media (SNS) such as Naver (Knowledge iN, Cafes, etc.), Instagram, and Facebook also accounted for a significant portion.
Case examples include many deletion requests due to ▲account loss ▲site withdrawal ▲deletion not allowed under usage policy ▲account hacking. These include cases where the phone number linked to the SNS account has changed, making it impossible to retrieve the password, or where a user withdraws from a site leaving their personal information on the bulletin board and cannot delete it.
The Personal Information Protection Commission has created a major Q&A related to the service to inform more users about Jiu-gae and is providing guidance through the commission’s SNS. Additionally, a Jiu-gae project booth was operated at the ‘2024 Korea Youth Expo,’ held until the 25th, allowing youth to experience the service.
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