According to the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) on July 21, as the revised Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection has entered into effect, online business operators are banned from collecting personal identification numbers through the Internet. (image: Kobiz Media / Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, July 22 (Korea Bizwire) – It is expected that all traces of resident registration numbers on the Internet will be removed by the end of this year.
According to the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) on July 21, as the revised Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection has entered into effect, online business operators are banned from collecting personal identification numbers through the Internet.
In addition, the law mandates that all collected ID numbers be deleted in the two years following the enactment of the law.
To make the law even more effective, the KCC last year launched a “Clean Internet Environment Campaign” that targeted approximately 15,000 domestic sites in a bid to make them refrain from collecting ID numbers when new users sign up.
The KCC helped some 9,000 sites to remove the numbers, and is aiming to destroy all of the ID number databases within the year.
Currently, it is monitoring small and mid-sized online business operators with 50,000 to 100,000 visitors with regards to their ID number collection habits, and plans to help all the target sites to wipe their database clean of personal information.
A KCC official said, “In case of small-sized operators, they often neglect their sites or are not active in taking care of necessary tasks for fear of cost. We will support the removal of the databases this year, but from next year, businesses neglecting the measure will be fined up to 30 million won.”
By M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
