Top court confirms fine for Homeplus for selling customer data to insurers

By Bahk Eun-ji

The Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling that fined retail chain Homeplus for collecting customers' personal information via lottery events and providing it to local insurance companies.

A Homeplus outlet in Seoul. /Korea Times file

It said, Tuesday, that it upheld the high court ruling that slapped the retailer with a 75 million won ($61,800) fine for violating the Personal Information Protection Act.

In 2015, the company was accused of collecting 24 million customers' personal data, such as phone numbers and dates of birth, through lottery events on multiple occasions between August 2011 and June 2014, selling the information to seven life insurance companies at 1,980 won for each person's information, totaling 23.1 billion won.

Homeplus claimed it gave prior notice of the data collection for the insurance firms on the back of their lottery coupons but the notification was written in a font 1 millimeter in height.

Courts have made different rulings on whether the notification in such small letters were legally proper or not.

A district court and a high court said the notification could be read with the naked eye, clearing Homeplus and company officials of the charges.

However, the Supreme Court rejected the claim, stating the size of the notification was a socially unacceptable means to get consent from customers, referring the case back to a high court.

The high court then ruled that the retailer was guilty of collecting data through improper means, and the top court confirmed the verdict this time.

It also confirmed sentences for six former Homeplus officials in connection to the case, including the sentence of former CEO Do Sung-hwan who was given 10 months in prison suspended for two years.