The personal information watchdog fined AliExpress, a Chinese e-commerce retail platform, 1.9 billion won (US$1.37 million) on Thursday for leaking the personal information of South Korean customers to about 180,000 overseas sellers without informing them.
The Personal Information Protection Commission approved the decision during its plenary meeting, marking the first time a fine has been imposed for irregular overseas transfer of domestic personal information.
AliExress has been found to have provided the personal data of Korean customers to its listed sellers for shipping ordered products. Over 180,000 overseas sellers, mostly Chinese, were found to have received Korean customers’ personal information in the process, the commission said.
For the information transfer, AliExpress did not provide the required notification to users about the countries, names and contact numbers of those receiving their personal information, nor did it include necessary data protection measures in its sales terms, the commis
sion said.
Additionally, its online pages were organized in a way that made it difficult for users to cancel their membership, while the page for removing their accounts was written in English, making it less accessible to users.
The Personal Information Protection Act requires consent from users for overseas transfer of their personal information and mandates that information about consumer complaint settlement procedures be included in the terms and conditions.
In response to the decision, AliExpress said in a statement, “We are doing our best to fully cooperate with Korea’s regulation authorities to abide by the laws involving personal data protection and to protect consumers’ rights.”
Under Thursday’s decision, the commission fined Alibaba.com, the parent firm of AliExpress, nearly 1.98 billion won, and ordered it to implement protection measures for overseas information transfer and to streamline the membership cancellation procedures.
The decision came as the commission has been investigating perso
nal data protection compliance of Chinese e-commerce giants, including Temu, amid rising complaints.
The commission decided to address another data protection case involving Temu during its next plenary session.
Source: Yonhap News Agency