Rep. Lee Jeong-heon of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information, Broadcasting, and Communications Committee, hosted a policy forum at 10:00 a.m. today at the National Assembly Members' Office Building in Yeouido, Seoul, under the theme "The Era of 35 Million Delivery Apps: Is My Privacy Safe?"

In his opening remarks and keynote speech, Rep. Lee said, "We live in a platform era where we order food with just a few clicks on our smartphones and enjoy everyday convenience." He added, "Behind this convenience, massive amounts of life-oriented data—from which we can deduce entire lifestyle patterns such as individual actual residences, delivery addresses, and movement routes—are being accumulated on private platforms."

Rep. Lee pointed out, "Due to laws and systems lagging behind technology, blind spots are threatening the personal safety of citizens, such as the court's fact-finding inquiry system being abused as a means for stalking offenders to track actual residences, and customer information leaked by outsourced platform customer service agents leading to private retaliatory terror."


Ahn Hee-jae, a reporter from the SBS Social Affairs Desk who gave a presentation, analyzed that delivery apps have become a link in private retaliation, based on a series of exclusive reports on the actual state of information leaks from delivery apps.

In addition, showing police testimony statements confirmed during the reporting process, such as "the team leader of a retaliatory terror organization instructed [an operative] to infiltrate and get a job at an outsourced company of Baemin [Baedal Minjok]," she thoroughly exposed the lax management of personal information by delivery apps.

Reporter Ahn said, "How can you screen people out if they are determined to infiltrate with a false identity? I somewhat sympathize with the narrative that Baemin is also suffering damages," while adding, "I want to throw the question of 'Who is the real victim?'"


Sim Hyun-hee, head of the Distribution Industry Division at Bloter, also gave a presentation, introducing a three-part special reporting series titled "Delivery Apps Turned Private Detective Agencies" and highlighting blind spots in laws and systems.

Division Head Sim stated, "If you only know a phone number, you can easily check the delivery address stored in a delivery app through the court's fact-finding inquiry procedure," adding, "While fact-finding inquiry is an essential system for trials, it has a loophole where it can be exploited for crimes."

She further suggested that discussions are needed on how long platform companies should store accumulated personal information and to what extent access privileges should be granted to outsourced customer service personnel.

Kim Seung-ju, a professor at Korea University's Graduate School of Information Security who participated in the panel discussion, offered his opinion, saying, "The core of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act lies not in the accident itself, but in questioning whether management executives established and operated a safety management system." He added, "A similar shift in perspective is needed in the personal information sector. Rather than limiting the targets of punishment simply to on-site actors, managerial responsibility must be clearly imposed on the chief executive of the institution who has the obligation to design and operate a personal information protection system."

Kim Hye-mi, a legislative investigator at the National Assembly Research Service, emphasized the need to strengthen criminal law responses to the abuse of internal authority within platforms.

The Partial Amendment to the Personal Information Protection Act recently sponsored by Rep. Lee Jeong-heon includes provisions to: (▲) promptly notify data subjects when courts acquire personal information from private platforms for trial purposes; (▲) upgrade the application of authentication measures to prevent unauthorized internal platform access into a legal safety-ensuring obligation; and (▲) drastically strengthen the punishment level for illegal provision and use of personal information from the current maximum of 5 years in prison to up to 10 years in prison (or a fine of up to 100 million won).