Privacy in Korea: PICO

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About Privacy, The Personal Information Dispute Mediation Committee(PIDMC) is an independent statutory body established on December 3, 2001 on the basis of the "Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, etc."

As the Internet and IT services are popularized recently, personal information is used as basic marketing data, and thus the commercial value of it is being highlighted. Accordingly, the excessive collection, abuse and misuse of personal information have become social problems

In order to cope with these challenges, PIDMC was established for a quick and convenient settlement at an affordable cost as one of the alternative dispute resolution(ADR) mechanisms in Korea.

And we can see, this major case:


Case where an online game company collected personal information of an 11-year-old minor without consent of legal guardian

The complainant is a parent whose 11-year-old son, an elementary school student, registered as a member to the online game site operated by the respondent, an online game company, and who learned that his son had used the fee-based game services and had been charged approximately KRW180,000 for the games.The complainant claimed that he had never consented to the collection of the personal and payment information by the respondent when his son had joined the website of the respondent, and demanded the secession of his sons membership and refund of the charged service fees from the respondent. PICO recommended immediate membership withdrawal, along with the refund of KRW 180,000.