SEOUL: South Korea’s Gender Ministry is considering filing a criminal complaint against Google over the exposure of personal information contained in requests to remove digital sex crime content from its search results.
“We are considering filing a complaint, although it is difficult to disclose further details at this stage,” a Ministry of Gender Equality and Family official told The Korea Herald on Wednesday (Sept 9). “We are also exploring various measures to prevent a recurrence and protect and support the victims.”
The review follows reports that Google shared the removal requests with a US-based research database, where they became publicly accessible without the removal of all identifying information.
The posted documents reportedly contained victims’ names, workplaces, schools and phone numbers, along with detailed accounts of the harm they had suffered. Some requests were submitted by victims and others by organisations supporting them.
The ministry said it learned of the disclosure on Aug. 25 and immediately asked Google and the database operator to remove the information. It also requested an emergency review by the Broadcasting and Media Communications Standards Commission.
About 200 postings have since been removed or blocked, including 15 that contained personally identifying information, according to the ministry.
Since early Monday, all removal requests submitted by victims and victim-support organisations in Korea have been removed from public view on the research database.
The ministry met with Google Korea executives Saturday and held a follow-up meeting Monday with Google’s Asia-Pacific representatives based in Singapore. It demanded a full account of how the information was disclosed, an assessment of the scale of the incident and measures to prevent a recurrence.
In a statement provided to the media, Google said its policy was not to share victims’ information with the database. It said it asked the database operator to delete the material as soon as it discovered that some information had been shared. - The Korea Herald/ANN
