CENTRAL GOVT TO DELETE IRRELEVANT PATIENT DATA

[Anchor Lead]

Personal information or movements of COVID-19 patients remain on the internet to hurt their privacy or businesses. Local governments have been deleting outdated information but now the central government will take on the responsibility of erasing the needless data and revising relevant laws.

[Pkg]

A restaurant visited by a COVID-19 patient back in March. When that information became public, customers stopped coming.

[Soundbite] AHN KI-SEOP(RESTAURANT OWNER) : "It was all over the district website and social media sites, so who would come? I thought about closing down to cut the losses."

The travel route of confirmed patients is disclosed on the internet for quick contact-tracing. The problem is, the information is available even after some time has passed. In April the government shortened the period to keep that information available. Movement information was made confidential or deleted, 14 days after a patient's last contact. But in many cases, the information still remain on social media or portal sites long after that period is over. Until now, each local government had to contact the portal sites and ask them to delete the info.

[Soundbite] BYEON JA-WUN(GWANAK-GU DISTRICT OFFICE) : "Deletion cannot be forced. About a third of the sites refused to delete the information, claiming that people have the right to know."

The central government stepped up as the circulation of outdated and unnecessary information caused secondary damage such as invasion of privacy. Local government bodies can ask the sites to collectively delete the info through the Korea Internet and Security Agency. Also, more government employees will be assigned to the task of online monitoring. The government asked portal sites and media companies for their voluntary cooperation and plans to revise laws to mandate the deletion of outdated and irrelevant movement information.