Names, schools and illegal filming case details exposed on overseas site
Google calls it an error made during human review
Ministry reviewing possible violations of Personal Information Protection Act, other laws
Google's handling of sensitive information is drawing fire. Illegal filming victims had sent Google deletion requests and personal information, asking that footage of their abuse be removed, but the material was found exposed on an overseas website. The government has taken emergency steps to delete and block the material and is now considering filing a complaint against Google.
South Korea's Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said Wednesday it is reviewing whether Google's leak of victims' personal information to an outside site violates several laws. These include the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes and the Telecommunications Business Act. They also include the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection and the Personal Information Protection Act.
The complaint is expected to be filed either by the ministry itself or by the Korea Women's Human Rights Institute, which operates the Digital Sex Crime Victim Support Center.
On Aug. 25, the ministry learned that information capable of identifying digital sex crime victims had been posted on an overseas research project site that Google collaborates with.
The postings included information that could identify individuals — names, ages, workplaces, schools and phone numbers — as well as descriptions of what had happened to the victims.
On the victims' behalf, the ministry immediately asked Google and the site to delete the information. It also requested an emergency blocking review from the Korea Communications Standards Commission. About 200 posts — including 15 cases of personal information disclosed without consent — were deleted or blocked as a priority.
Following the government's action, all deletion requests submitted to Google have been invisible on the site since around 1 a.m. Monday.
In this regard, Google apologized to the victims, saying, "As a principle, we do not share victims' information with the site. As soon as we confirmed that some information had not been deleted and was unintentionally shared with the site's database, we requested that it be removed."
A ministry official said, "Given that this case involves the leak of information that could identify victims, we are treating it seriously and believe thorough measures are needed to prevent a recurrence." The official added, "Before taking any legal action, including a complaint, a close review of whether the law was violated must come first."
The official went on to say, "Google explains that information related to sex crimes was not filtered out during the human review process," adding, "a reliable system needs to be reinforced so the same error does not happen again."
The ministry plans to review Google's measures to prevent a recurrence and the safety of its data handling, and will resume requesting the deletion of the victims' footage.
kido@heraldcorp.com
