Abstract:
According to Yonhap News Agency's report on Friday, the head of Samsung Electronics' largest labor union and a senior union official are under investigation for allegedly stealing the personal information of about 100,000 employees and establishing a "union blacklist." According to reports, the Dongtan Police Station in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, has transferred Samsung Electronics Union Chairman Choi Seung-ho and this undisclosed senior union official to the prosecutor's office without detention on suspicion of violating the Personal Information Protection Act.
Cui Seung-ho and the union officials are accused of using illegally obtained personal information of employees, including their union membership status, to compile a blacklist. It is believed that the list was roughly made around March, when the union was preparing to launch a general strike over performance bonuses.
The undisclosed union official, who was responsible for operating the company's internal system, is suspected of illegally obtaining a document containing the names of more than 100,000 company employees and handing it over to the union.
On April 10 this year, Samsung Electronics reported to the police and filed charges against several union-related officials, accusing them of extracting and disseminating employee information unrelated to their job responsibilities.
The company subsequently filed a complaint against the union officials involved on April 16, accusing them of illegally collecting large amounts of employee personal information through the company's internal systems and providing the information to third parties.
Samsung said the union official accessed internal systems about 20,000 times in about an hour to view employee personal information.
The police spent nearly five months investigating various related circumstances showing Cui Chenghao's involvement in making the union blacklist, and then decided to charge the two.
On the other hand, the police also transferred four other Samsung Electronics employees to the prosecutor's office on the same day, accusing them of improperly accessing the company's internal systems and violating the Personal Information Protection Act.
It is reported that the four people inquired about the union membership status of other employees out of curiosity, but did not compile or spread the relevant information.
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