Korean privacy commission to probe Apple, Alipay

Ko Hak-soo, Chairperson of the Personal Information Protection Commission, presides over the 15th committee meeting at the Government Complex in Seoul on the 11th. [Photo by Yonhap]

The Personal Information Protection Commission announced on Tuesday that it will launch a probe into Apple Inc. and Alipay.com Co., for their connection with the transfer of Kakao Pay’s personal information overseas.

“Both Kakao Pay, as well as Alipay and Apple, are targets of the investigation,” Personal Information Protection Commission chairperson Ko Hak-soo said during a briefing on Tuesday.

The commission has already begun an investigation into Kakao Pay following the Financial Supervisory Service. The probe concerns allegations that Kakao Pay failed to take necessary measures and provide notifications regarding the overseas transfer of personal data under the Personal Information Protection Act.

Kakao Pay previously explained that it provided customer information to Alipay as part of “Apple’s partnership conditions,” stating, “We have provided the requested information.”

Ko noted that “it is crucial to determine whether the domestic data transferred to Alipay and Apple qualifies as personal information and whether Kakao Pay took appropriate security measures.”

“We are currently in the stage of understanding what specific information was converted and how.”

The FSS announced earlier that Kakao Pay had provided Alipay with a total of 54.2 billion pieces of customer credit information to calculate individual credit scores as requested by Apple’s partnership conditions.

“It is difficult to provide specific details about the ongoing investigation,” Ko said. “We are examining the relationships between the companies and the flow of data related to their services.”

He added that “while we can refer to the flow of other services, the commission does not plan to investigate related services such as Naver Pay and Toss.”