Chairperson Song Gyeong-hee of the Personal Information Protection Commission, referring to the penalty surcharge clause in the Personal Information Protection Act amendment bill that passed the National Policy Committee in the wake of the Coupang personal data leak, said, "With this amendment, we are not considering retroactively applying the effective date for now."
On the 17th, Chairperson Song appeared at a hearing on the Coupang personal data leak held by the Science. ICT. Broadcasting. and Communications Committee of the National Assembly and gave this answer to a related question from Lee Hun-gi, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party of Korea.
When Lee argued to the effect that "if retroactive application is difficult under the amendment, the government should prepare a special law for Coupang so that it can be applied retroactively," Chairperson Song said, "A separate review is needed for a special law."
According to the Personal Information Protection Act amendment bill that passed the National Policy Committee that day, when large-scale personal data leak damage occurs, the upper limit of the penalty surcharge will be raised from the current 3% of total sales to up to 10%.
Imposition of a penalty surcharge may be made within the 10% range only in cases of "repeated violations of the law within three years due to intent or gross negligence," "large-scale damage to 10 million or more people due to intent or gross negligence," and "acts where a leak occurred by failing to comply with a corrective order."
However, because it is not applied retroactively to incidents that occurred before the amendment takes effect, even if the bill passes the National Assembly plenary session, Coupang is expected to avoid a penalty surcharge bomb.
Regarding the basis for calculating the penalty surcharge, Chairperson Song said, "Those surveyed at present are Coupang Corp. in Korea," and added, "Sales figures also need to be clearly organized based on Coupang Corp. in Korea."
When Lee noted that "strong sanctions are needed against corporations like Coupang," Chairperson Song answered, "I believe strict application of the law is necessary."