Male Colleague in His 30s Fined in Second Trial for Filming Messenger and Reporting to Company

A man in his 30s who photographed online messenger conversations of a coworker and reported them to his company was fined in the second trial.

According to the legal community on the 18th, Judge Kim Han-seong of the Criminal Appeals Division 3 at the Seoul Eastern District Court sentenced A (34), who was indicted for violating the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, to a fine of 700,000 won, the same as in the first trial.

A is accused of taking advantage of the fact that his coworker B did not log out after using the messenger on a shared computer at the store, photographing the conversation contents, and delivering them to the company's Ethics Management Office. The conversations exchanged between B and the other party included disparaging remarks about A and other coworkers.

After being fined in the first trial, A appealed, claiming it was a legitimate act to report workplace harassment. However, the second trial court dismissed the appeal, ruling that A's transmission of the conversation contents did not constitute a legitimate act.

The court stated as a reason for sentencing, "B does not have the right to access the messenger for personal purposes rather than the company's internal information network," and "checking and transmitting B's messenger contents without proper access rights constitutes an act of disclosing another person's secrets."