The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) organized a seminar on business corporations’ collection of personal information on August 31, 2011. The purpose was to discuss the issue of the excessive collection of personal, sensitive and location information by business entities and to develop effective regulations and systems for the protection of personal information.
The issue of personal data collection has emerged to the centre of public attention due to a number of incidents where personal information collected by businesses was leaked to third parties. In those cases, it was found that some businesses have collected their customers’ personal information such as resident registration number, contact details, occupations, marriage status and hobbies.
It was the 3rd seminar in a series on information and communications technologies (ICT) and human rights, organized by the NHRCK from August 2011. The NHRCK recognized that it was necessary to examine the issue of the right to privacy and to prepare a mechanism for privacy protection, reflecting the increase of violation cases and the extent of their severity. Starting off with the seminar on the disclosure and protection of personal information, the series addressed the issues of the right to enjoy culture, to participate in cultural life and to benefit from technological and scientific progress; and the collection and leak of personal data. The upcoming seminars in the series will examine the issues of vulnerable groups and their rights to access information technology; and parody and the extent and limits of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
