Personal and Sensitive Information Exposed on Government Open Information Portal; Ministry Apologizes

It has been confirmed that some documents provided on the Government Information Disclosure Portal (open.go.kr) exposed personal resident registration numbers as well as sensitive health-related information.

The Information Disclosure Portal is a government website that allows citizens to search for and download approved documents produced by central administrative agencies and local governments to guarantee the public's right to know.

For documents that are not disclosed in advance, the portal guides users to obtain them through information disclosure requests.

While disclosed documents are normally provided with personal information masked, it was reported that some documents exposed personal information as well as sensitive details such as cancer diagnosis certificates.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety, which operates the portal, confirmed this fact on the 4th and completely suspended the original document download service on the portal.

To gauge the scale of the exposed personal information, the ministry requested all public institutions to conduct a comprehensive inspection to check for any exposure of personal information in published documents.

An official from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety stated, "The original documents disclosed through the Information Disclosure Portal are provided in linkage with the information systems of the relevant agencies holding the information, so the exact scale of exposure is being verified by each agency."

In an explanatory statement released today (the 5th), the ministry apologized, saying, "We sincerely regret causing concern to the public due to the exposure of personal information in some documents on the Information Disclosure Portal."

The ministry added that it will overhaul the personal information filtering system within the portal to prevent exposure as much as possible and improve related systems to prevent future leaks, including the newly introducing personal information filtering software.

(Photo: Capture of the website's main screen, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.