The Financial Services Commission decided to impose a fine of about 7 billion won ($5.1 million) on Tongyang Life Insurance (082640.KS) for violating the Credit Information Use and Protection Act, sharply reducing the 140 billion won penalty originally proposed by the Financial Supervisory Service.
The FSC approved the 7 billion won fine at a regular meeting on the 9th. A 2022 examination of the insurer's management practices found that Tongyang Life had provided customers' personal credit information to an affiliated general agency without their consent. The FSS had proposed a fine of about 140 billion won, treating the case as the provision of information to a third party under the credit information law.
Through a legal interpretation review committee and other channels, the FSC concluded that Tongyang Life's transfer of personal credit information to its affiliated general agency amounted to a simple outsourcing of business operations rather than the provision of information to a third party. The commission also found that the scale of the leak was not large compared with other financial sectors and that some of the conduct did not qualify for fines. It sharply reduced the penalty in consideration of the principle of proportionality, among other factors.
Financial authorities said they would review ways to improve the system for imposing fines under the credit information law.
