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| Home plus CEO Do Sung-hwan |
By Chung Hyun-chae
More than 150 consumers have filed a collective lawsuit against Home plus, a discount store chain, for selling their personal data to insurance firms without their consent.
Yeyul, a law firm representing the 152 people, said Tuesday it had submitted a complaint to the Seoul Central District Court seeking a combined 45.6 million won ($41,435) in compensation for mental and financial damages. Each client is demanding 300,000 won.
The collective action comes after six former and incumbent Home plus executives, including current CEO Do Sung-hwan, were indicted for selling the data from 24 million customers to insurance firms, receiving 23 billion won for the exchange.
"Home plus collected sensitive personal information including names, phone numbers, birth dates and whether customers lived with their parents, which would likely be used for crimes such as phone scams and phishing," the consumers said in the complaint.
"Under the law on privacy protection, a company should collect as little information as possible from customers and should not provide the data to a third party without their consent."
Home plus claimed it informed customers of how the data would be used by writing details on the back of lottery coupons. But the text was written in a font size of 1 millimeter and almost nobody noticed it.
"If we had noticed, we would not have agreed to provide our personal information," they said. "And even though some agreed to the provision, it does not mean they agreed to Home plus illegally making a profit through the data sale."
A lawyer at Yeyul said, "Considering that this was done by one of the country's top retailers, unlike previous personal information leak incidents committed by hackers, this case is more serious. That fact must be taken into consideration when estimating the compensation."
According to a joint government investigation team, Home plus collected the private information of 7.12 million people through 11 lotteries from 2011 to July last year and sold that information to seven insurance firms for 14.8 billion won.
The team said the lotteries were held under the name of "appreciation to customers," but the actual purpose was to collect the data. Each person's data was sold for 1,980 won.
The retailer also sold the personal data of some 16.9 million Home plus members to two insurance firms in return for 8.3 billion won.
Similar suits are expected to follow, as some consumer groups are receiving applications from Home plus clients to begin collective action. Civic groups and Internet users are also staging a boycott of the retailer.
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