South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) – Overview

South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) strictly regulates any collection, use, and disclosure of personal information by individuals, private entities and government bodies.

South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) was passed in 2011, and today it is one of the strictest data privacy laws in the world!

This is a very comprehensive law that applies to the privacy rights of most organizations and government entities.

The penalties for breaking the PIPA include everything from corrective orders and administrative fines to imprisonment.

Scope of application of South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA)

If you’re not sure if South Korea’s personal information protection act covers your business.

See below the territorial and personal scope of application of this act:

Territorial PIPA’s scope of application

The territorial scope of PIPA is not explicitly defined. But there are factors through which PIPA determines whether a foreign entity is subject to this law or not. So, a foreign entity is subject to PIPA if:

• It provides services aimed at Koreans
• The company generates revenue from doing business in South Korea, regardless of its headquarters

Personal PIPA’s scope of application

The PIPA applies to any personal information handler, regardless if it is an individual, an organization, a public agency, or a juridical person. It’s important that the personal information handler themselves or through a third party handles the data subject’s personal data.

A personal data processor is anyone who collects, generates, records, stores, processes, retains, edits, searches, corrects, restores, uses, provides, discloses or destroys data of another person.

How can the organizations comply with South Korea’s PIPA?

To be sure your organization complies with PIPA, you must:

• To perform thorough data mapping. So that you better understand the types of data used by the organization.
• Identify sensitive personal information
• Eliminate the need for “additional personal information” that is not necessarily required by the organization or the law
• Update the organization’s processes, policies, and systems to comply with PIPA requirements
• The security of an organization’s processes is of paramount importance, especially if those processes pose a risk to the privacy or security of consumers. Then be sure to hire a third party to conduct a cyber audit

How can your website comply with South Korea’s PIPA?

This is not explicitly stated in the law. But it’s a good idea to comply with South Korea’s PIPA on your website by letting your South Korean users know what you’re collecting, what you’ll be using it for, and who you’ll be sharing it with. Ask for their consent before processing any of their personal data and give them access to their personal data. You can do so by creating an announcement banner, for example.

Bottom line:

South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), like many global data privacy laws, aims to protect the data subject’s privacy rights as well as prevent entities such as companies or organizations from misusing data they receive for their users.

If PIPA covers your business, you must ensure that you comply with the law. Due to non-compliance with it, there are penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment.

To help you make PIPA compliance more easily, there are Jira and Confluence apps.

Jira and confluence apps like Data Protection and Security Toolkit enable compliance with most of the world’s major data privacy laws, including South Korea’s PIPA!