President Lee Jae-myung on the 16th said, "The size of penalty surcharges for recent personal information leaks has grown, and it seems there are corporations claiming, 'Am I being singled out?,'" and added, "It would be good to fully explain that this was done strictly according to the law and our policy without considering the characteristics of any corporation."
Although he did not specify which corporations, it appears he was referring to Coupang, which was imposed a 624.6 billion won penalty surcharge by the Personal Information Protection Commission for a personal information leak incident. After the large-scale data breach, Coupang has been conducting all-out lobbying targeting U.S. political circles, influencing diplomatic relations such as South Korea-U.S. security negotiations.
At the second government ministry work report held at the Cheong Wa Dae state guesthouse that morning, Lee said to Song Kyung-hee of the Personal Information Protection Commission, "As per the policy we recently set, we should sharply raise penalties for personal information leaks or misuse so that the expense of protecting personal information is far exceeded, and then wouldn't corporations actually engage in personal information protection activities?" He also said, "Regarding (personal information infringement or leaks), the clear policy of the government of the Republic of Korea is to strengthen penalties," and ordered that it be fully explained that specific corporations are not taken into account.
Chairperson Song explained, "Corporations that file reports in good faith receive more benefits such as reductions in penalty surcharges, and if they do not report and are later caught, we are revising the system to add more than 30% to the penalty surcharge." Then Lee said it was "a good method," but asked, "Are you introducing a large-scale whistleblower reward program that gives about 30% of the collected penalty surcharge?"
When Chairperson Song answered to the effect that there are limits to "internal reporting" and that the lack of a statute of limitations makes it difficult, Lee said, "Generally, all penalties have a statute of limitations. It doesn't seem like something to conclude so definitively, so check it," and added, "The best way to prevent violations from being hidden internally is for it to become widely known that even if a report is filed after a considerable amount of time, one will ultimately be held accountable on a massive scale; then they will choose to invest the expense to prevent it."