Kakao and Samsung Electronics have decided to provide the contact information of victims' acquaintances to the bereaved families of the Jeju Air passenger plane disaster.
According to industry sources on the 9th, Kakao recently consulted with the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Personal Information Protection Commission and decided to provide the contact information of acquaintances from the victims' KakaoTalk accounts to the bereaved families. It is reported that account-related information other than phone numbers will not be provided.
Earlier, Naver and Kakao maintained that they could not provide victims' account information and passwords to the bereaved families due to privacy policies and technical reasons. However, as the demand from the bereaved families for contact information increased for funeral arrangements and other obituaries, it is analyzed that they decided to provide only the phone numbers.
The Ministry of Science and ICT also requested that Samsung, Google, and Apple provide contact information backed up in the cloud, considering the large number of cases where victims lost their mobile phones. So far, Samsung and Apple have decided to provide this information, while Google is still under review.
The scale of discounts on telecommunications and broadcasting fees for victims and their families has also increased. Previously, a maximum fee of 12,500 won per mobile phone line was supported, and for victim households, internet and broadcasting usage fees were discounted by 50% for one month, while phone fees were discounted by 100%. However, support has been further expanded, with communication costs, cancellation fees, and remaining installment payments fully exempted for victims, and usage fees and penalties fully exempted for victim households for the two months of last month and this month.
The ICT industry is supporting the victims and bereaved families of the Jeju Air passenger plane disaster. Samsung Electronics is operating a service center on-site to support smartphone repairs, and telecommunications companies have installed mobile base stations and free Wi-Fi at the airport and joint mourning halls.