Seoul: E-commerce giant Coupang Inc. has been fined for leaking about 150,000 pieces of personal information of delivery workers and customers, the state data protection watchdog said Thursday. The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) announced the penalty of 1.5 billion won (US$1.08 million) during a plenary meeting on Wednesday. Furthermore, the commission ordered Technology Infrastructure Korea, known as Otter Korea, the developer of Coupang’s integrated order information management system, to adhere to its obligation to destroy personal information.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the PIPC initiated an investigation after discovering the leak of personal information of approximately 135,000 Coupang Eats delivery workers in 2021. Additionally, the personal information of about 22,000 customers from Coupang’s seller system was compromised. Coupang Eats, a food delivery subsidiary of Coupang, was accused of providing the real names and phone numbers of delivery workers to restaurants until Nov
ember 2021. Otter Korea faced accusations of not destroying the real names and mobile phone numbers of about 135,000 delivery workers even after the completion of deliveries.

The commission further disclosed that the personal information of approximately 22,440 customers and recipients was leaked to unauthorized sellers via Coupang’s seller-exclusive system, known as WING. Coupang responded to these allegations by stating that the information leak incidents, as cited by the PIPC, occurred several years ago due to negligence by an external company or a temporary software error. The company asserted that all necessary measures have been implemented to prevent any recurrence.