On March 13, 2025, new legislation came into effect in South Korea to help people manage and protect their personal information. It is the last part of a 2023 amendment to the Personal Information Protection Act to take effect. (Act No. 10465, Mar. 29, 2011, amended by Act No. 19234, Mar. 14, 2023.) Other parts of the 2023 amendment became law on September 15, 2023, and March 15, 2024.
The newly implemented provision allows individuals to ask entities that control and process their personal data to transmit such information to other parties. Under this provision, individuals may request that data controllers transmit personal data to 1) them, the data subjects, under the right to receive personal information, or 2) other personal information controllers, under the right to request third party transmissions. (Article 35-2.)
Individuals already have these rights within the financial and public sectors. The government’s online service MyData allows users to comprehensively manage their personal credit information regarding securities, insurance, credit cards, and banks on a single platform. (Credit Information Use and Protection Act, Act No. 9617, Apr. 1, 2009, as amended, art. 33-2; and Electronic Government Act, Act No. 10012, Feb. 4, 2010, as amended, art. 43-2.)
The amended Personal Information Protection Act provides a legal basis for implementing MyData more widely by granting data subjects the right to transmit personal information in more sectors. The Personal Information Protection Commission announced that it will add the medical and communications fields to the MyData service in 2025, and the energy sector will be added in June 2026. It has identified 10 key areas—medical, communications, energy, transportation, education, employment, real estate, welfare, distribution, and leisure—as the first to include in MyData, and it plans to gradually expand the key fields.
The commission and the Korea Internet and Security Agency held a demonstration of MyData services on May 20, 2025, at the Government Complex in Seoul. They introduced the following five services at the event: (1) personalized mobile plan recommendations, (2) optimized travel planning, (3) personalized disease management, (4) overseas medical record translation, and (5) safe medication management. Users can access all MyData services and view where their data has been shared. They can also withdraw their consent at any time through the MyData Support Platform (onmydata.go.kr).
Prepared by Inseol Hong, Law Library Intern, under the supervision of Sayuri Umeda, Foreign Law Specialist
Law Library of Congress, June 23, 2025
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