Cybersecurity Policy Report, South Korean Privacy Office Investigates Disclosures by Google, (Sep 15, 2026)

By Tony Foley

South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) launched an investigation last week into alleged leaks of requests for the deletion of digital sex crimes made to Google that were publicly disclosed to an external website.

The PIPC said in a news release that it demanded the submission of materials from Google on Sept. 7 to verify the facts of the alleged disclosures. Specifically, the PIPC is requesting information on the scale of the items of sensitive personal information provided by Google to the external website operators and the length of time the information was leaked. The agency plans to examine whether Google continuously provided deletion requests to the operators or whether there was a human or system error.

In addition, the PIPC will examine whether Google had a lawful basis for processing with respect to the provision of the information to the third-party operators and whether consent procedures were followed when transmitting sensitive information. Because the case involves particularly sensitive information regarding digital sex crimes, the PIPC will consider whether urgent deletion or blocking is required and will make efforts to prevent the spread of damage, including asking Google and the operators to immediately rectify the situation.

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