Gyeonggi Province's Human Rights Protection Officer has decided that local governments and public institutions should improve the way they announce successful candidates in open recruitment by adopting methods that protect privacy, instead of disclosing names and partial birthdates that can identify individuals.
On August 6, Gyeonggi Province held a Human Rights Protection Officer meeting and made this decision, which was communicated to 31 cities and counties as well as 28 public institutions under Gyeonggi Province.
Previously, Mr. A, who is active as a member of the ‘Gyeonggi Sarang Resident Participation Group,’ submitted an opinion to the Gyeonggi Human Rights Center stating that it is inappropriate for cities, counties, and public institutions to excessively expose information that can identify successful candidates when announcing recruitment results.
In response, the standing Human Rights Protection Officer of Gyeonggi Province judged that the conventional method of announcing successful candidates could infringe on residents’ privacy rights and initiated an ex officio investigation. The investigation reviewed the status of recruitment announcements made by 31 cities, counties, and public institutions from January to June 2024.
The investigation confirmed that some cities, counties, and public institutions publicly disclosed personal information such as names and birthdates of successful candidates or combined information in a way that could identify individuals.
The Gyeonggi Human Rights Protection Officer meeting stated that recruitment announcements that can identify individuals violate the personal information protection principles under Article 3, Paragraphs 6 and 7 of the Personal Information Protection Act and infringe on the freedom of privacy guaranteed by Article 17 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. They conveyed the opinion to 31 cities, counties, and 28 public institutions that it is necessary to switch to a non-disclosure format that announces only the examination numbers to indicate success or failure.
The Gyeonggi Human Rights Protection Officer meeting is a deliberative and decision-making body that determines human rights violations based on investigations of cases received by the Human Rights Center and remedies infringed human rights through corrective recommendations and opinions. It has been active since August 2017.
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