At the Housing Expo, "1 Year Free Fire Insurance" Offer Leads to Personal Information Leakage

Customer Personal Information DB Trade Rampant
DB Graded and Sold for Tens of Thousands of Won per Case
Randomly Sold Without Prior Consent

It has been revealed that in the insurance sales field, databases (DB) containing customers' personal information are being traded by categorizing them into grades. Illegally collected and distributed personal information is shared in various places, causing an increase in customers suffering from random spam calls.

Insurance sales are broadly divided into acquaintance sales targeting people the salesperson knows and DB sales targeting random strangers. Since acquaintance sales have limitations, sales agents who excel at DB sales are practically regarded as top agents. The DB containing customers' names, phone numbers, dates of birth, etc., is divided into detailed grades. The DBs freely circulating on the internet are called 'MakDB'. Those collected for purposes such as coupon issuance or event participation at shopping malls are called 'Outbound DB', and cases where the policyholder directly requests consultation hoping to purchase insurance are called 'Inbound DB'. If the salesperson contacts the customer using the collected DB and arranges a direct meeting, it becomes a 'Permission DB'. The more times the customer is met, the higher the value of the Permission DB.

Recently, the term 'Hwajae Insurance DB' has also emerged. This refers to customer DBs secured under the condition of subscribing to 1-2 years of free fire insurance at move-in expos held before moving into new apartments. Recently, insurance agents affiliated with corporate insurance agencies (GA) have been enthusiastic about participating in move-in expo booths because they can easily and quickly collect high-quality DBs. When the expo organizers hold an event on the day of the expo and distribute '0-year free fire insurance' coupons, customers agree to the use of their personal information during the coupon usage process. The collected personal information is then passed on to the agents, becoming the 'Hwajae Insurance DB', and the agents pay a certain commission to the organizers for participating in the booth. One insurance agent said, "The expo organizers are favorable to insurance agents' participation, and most customers attending the event strongly want to protect their newly purchased homes, so they subscribe to fire insurance," adding, "The information utilization value is much higher than that of MakDB or Outbound DB."

Currently, there are numerous advertisements on the internet and social networking services (SNS) selling various DBs. One site sells DBs of elderly people aged 62-69 at 65,000 KRW each in units of 10. Permission DBs with scheduled customer visits are sold at 120,000 KRW each in units of 10. DBs of young people in their 30s are priced at 50,000 KRW, and Hwajae Insurance DBs are around 40,000 KRW. Some GAs even use the latest DBs as a recruitment tool for agents by offering them for free.

Some companies buy MakDB or Outbound DB cheaply, obtain permission through customer connections, and then resell the DB at prices 4 to 5 times higher. Occasionally, they approach by phone claiming to be the 'Insurance Refund Support Center' or an 'institution collaborating with the Insurance Development Institute'. These companies receive personal information under the pretext of redesigning insurance and obtain permission for in-person consultations, then sell the information to other agents at high prices. As such cases have increased, the Insurance Development Institute issued a voice phishing warning related to these incidents in March.

Trading customer information like this is clearly illegal. Some agents believe there is no problem because customers consented to the 'marketing use' or 'third-party provision' of their personal information, but even with consent, the information must be used only for the agreed purposes. When asking for consent to third-party provision in TV or website events, the specific recipients and purposes must be clearly stated. Any other provision or sale of personal information violates the Personal Information Protection Act. It is highly unlikely that customer DBs currently sold to unspecified many agents have obtained individual customer consent before sale. Many customers are unaware that their personal information is being circulated in this way. An industry insider said, "When obtaining consent for information provision from customers, it is common to write the details in tiny print or fail to properly explain the specifics of third-party provision, making it difficult for customers to fully understand," adding, "Some personal information is sold to spam call companies without proper notification about collection, management, and disposal procedures."