Police have launched a full-fledged investigation into Kakao Pay, which is suspected of handing over information on 40.5 million customers to China's Alipay.
The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said on the 13th that it received a request for investigation into Kakao Pay from the Financial Supervisory Service, assigned the case, and began investigating last month. Gyeonggi Nambu is currently investigating the Kakao Pay corporation on suspicion of violating the Credit Information Act.
According to an FSS investigation, Kakao Pay is believed to have transmitted a total of 54.2 billion pieces of personal data on about 40.45 million users from 2018 to May 2024 to Alipay. The transmitted information reportedly included encrypted mobile phone numbers and email addresses, as well as sensitive data such as stored balance.
When an Apple iPhone user registers Kakao Pay as a payment method, Kakao Pay sends user information to Apple, and it is assessed that the data leaked because Apple receives the information via Alipay.
The case first became known through an FSS announcement in Aug. last year, and the civic group Jayu Daehan Hogukdan filed a complaint with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office against Kakao Pay's management. The Seoul Suseo Police Station, which received the case from prosecutors, sought to close it early at the time on the grounds that the FSS investigation was ongoing, but after the FSS formally requested an investigation, Gyeonggi Nambu took over the case again.
The FSS determined that Kakao Pay improperly provided personal credit information to a third party without customer consent and on the 6th imposed a heavy sanction equivalent to an "institutional warning," along with a penalty surcharge of 12.976 billion won and fines of 4.8 million won.