The Supreme Court has ruled that a mobile phone store operator who kept a customer's old device after facilitating a phone replacement and later handed it over to the police did not violate the Personal Information Protection Act.
According to the legal community on August 13, the Supreme Court's First Petty Bench, presided over by Justice Seo Kyunhwan, upheld the lower court's acquittal of mobile phone store operator A and two police officers who had been indicted on charges of violating the Personal Information Protection Act.
In March 2018, after replacing customer B's mobile phone, A received and kept B's old device. In August of the same year, two police officers approached A and requested B's old phone. A handed over the device, which contained B's contact information, text messages, and other data. It was later found that the police officers collected criminal information about B using the device.
Both the first and second trial courts acquitted A and the two police officers. The court found that A's act of keeping the personal information left on the old device could not be regarded as "handling personal information in the course of business," and that the information remaining on B's old phone could not be considered "personal information obtained in connection with business operations."
The Supreme Court agreed with the lower courts and dismissed the appeal. The bench stated, "The prohibition against disclosing, providing, or leaking personal information applies only when personal information is handled 'in the course of business.' Acts such as handling personal information in a private, non-business context, disclosing or providing personal information learned in that process, or leaking personal information collected or retained in such a manner, are not subject to punishment."
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