Anchor: On the second day of ministry and state agency policy briefings, President Lee Jae Myung called for stronger economic sanctions on companies that fail to prevent data breaches. The president called for class-action suits that allow victims to to seek damages in data breach cases and a hike in the maximum data breach penalty.
Choi You Sun reports.

Report: The recent data breach at e-commerce giant Coupang was the focal point of a policy briefing by the Personal Information Protection Commission on Friday.

President Lee Jae Myung urged his government to introduce a system to help compensate individuals impacted by data breaches through class action and urged the central data protection authority to expedite related legislation.

Lee mentioned the recent fallout from the Coupang data breach, which affected nearly 34 million people, and said those whose personal information is exposed in such incidents currently face significant hurdles when seeking compensation due to the complex and costly litigation process.

An existing class-action provision of the Personal Information Protection Act allows for collective suits to block rights-violating actions but does not enable damages suits.

Lee said businesses have not taken the data breach issue seriously enough because South Korea's economic sanctions against such matters are too weak. 

He called for measures to increase the punishment of companies whose failure to prevent such incidents harms the public.

The president instructed the agency to increase the existing penalty cap for repeated and serious data leaks from three percent of the average turnover during the most recent three-year period to three percent of the highest turnover in the same period.

PIPC Chairperson Song Kyung-hee, for her part, had said the agency is seeking fines of up to ten percent of total revenue.
Choi You Sun, KBS World Radio News.