This file photo shows school kids looking at their smartphones. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, July 4 (Korea Bizwire) — In the government’s pilot project to ensure the digital right to be forgotten, the highest proportion of individuals requesting data deletion were middle and high school students, South Korea’s data protection watchdog said Monday.
According to data from the Personal Information Protection Commission, as of June 30, there were 3,488 data deletion requests, of which 2,763 cases were accepted.
Among these requests, individuals who were 15 years old accounted for the largest share by age at 18.7 percent.
When categorized by age group, those between the ages of 16 and 18 accounted for the largest share at 37 percent, followed by those below 15 at 33 percent.
Among the platforms, YouTube received the highest number of data deletion requests at 26.7 percent, followed by Facebook at 18.1 percent, Naver at 17 percent, TikTok at 14.8 percent, and Instagram at 13.5 percent.
Launched in April, the pilot project allows people to delete posts, photos, and videos they shared online during their childhood and teenage years (below the age of 18) if such data includes personal information.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
