By Yoon Sung-won
SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus said they will no longer provide customers’ personal information to investigative agencies without a warrant.
Their refusal to offer communication data came after a court ruling that may force them to pay 4 trillion won to customers in compensation.
Expectations are that the stoppage of the data provision, which previously was conducted at the telecom firm’s disposal, may cause difficulties for the prosecution, police and the National Intelligence Service in their investigations.
“Communication data is used as baseline information in investigations,” an official at the prosecution was quoted as saying in an interview. “It is known that telecom industry insiders are saying it is difficult to submit communication data to investigative agencies while bearing the massive burden of compensation following court rulings against them.”
Communication data refers to information including subscribers’ names, their resident registration numbers and addresses that can be used to identify a person.
The current law stipulates that local telecom firms can provide the data to investigative agencies at their discretion, when such information is requested, with or without a warrant issued by the court.
The amount of communication data provided for mobile subscribers reached 7.6 million pieces of information in 2013. If information for fixed-lines users is included, the number exceeds 9.5 million.
The move was known to have been triggered by recent court rulings against the telecom firms.
Three telecom subscribers previously filed a lawsuit against the three telecom firms, arguing that the companies have refused to inform people if the investigative agencies have acquired their personal information.
The Seoul High Court judged on Jan. 19 that telecom firms must send out notice if an investigative authority has looked through customer information, and ordered them to pay up to 300,000 won ($273.65) as compensation for delaying such notices.
After the judgment, telecom firms stopped providing data to the agencies and now disclose if they provide a certain customer’s personal information to the government if the customer requests.
In 2012, the Seoul High Court ordered the nation’s largest web portal, Naver, to compensate 500,000 won per case for arbitrarily providing personal information of customers who had been charged for defamation after uploading certain videos in an online community.
The case is now waiting for a Supreme Court judgment. If the Supreme Court approves it, the three telecom firms may have to pay up to 4 trillion won for compensation as a civic organization, People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democratization, is preparing a separate class-action against the companies.
The National Assembly is working to revise the law to require investigative authorities to submit a court warrant before they receive communication data. But the investigative agencies are concerned this will hamper investigation procedures on serious crimes, such as kidnapping and homicide, as well as other cases involving national security.
A telecom industry source said, “We are facing legal, social and financial risks if we have to continue providing communication data to the government under the ambiguity of the current law. We may need to come up with a measure to delay the law revision.”