Implications from Analysis of Judiciary Court Rulings on Personal Information in Korea

The objective of this study is to propose a set of criteria that will facilitate safe processing of personal information in preparation for the inevitable big data learning process based on personal information needed for the development of AI technology. To achieve this goal, a number of relevant legal precedents on providing AI technology services from the judiciary courts of Korea and the Constitutional Court of Korea have been selected. The selected precedents were classified and analyzed based on the level of ambiguity in interpretation of legal principles of ‘recognition as personal information (identifiability)’, ‘applicability of privacy regulations and laws’, and ‘lawful processing of personal information’ from the two laws governing personal information in Korea, the Personal Information Protection Act and the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection. This paper will propose a set of specific criteria that can be used when applying legal judgement for personal information protection based on the implications drawn from analysis of the selected precedents by the classification type of the legal cases. Also, this paper hopes that the criteria proposed will serve as base data that can be used to help legal interpretation and judgement in promoting the use of personal information to help facilitate AI services in the near future.