Law note · South Korea
Personal Information Protection Act, comprehensive regime and lawful bases
PIPA is Korea's single omnibus personal-data statute, reaching public institutions and private businesses alike. Art. 15 sets several lawful bases for collecting and using personal information, most commonly consent or the controller's justifiable interest where it is manifestly superior to the data subject's rights, and confines processing to the stated purpose of collection.
There is no separate controller and processor split as sharp as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)'s; PIPA instead regulates the broadly defined personal information controller.
What it asks of an app
- An app that collects, uses, or discloses the personal data of individuals in South Korea must establish one of PIPA's lawful processing grounds, most commonly consent or a documented legitimate interest justification, before processing, and must confine use to the stated purpose of collection.
When LexLint raises it
Declared activities: crawls_web, trains_models, generates_content, deploys_chatbot, automated_outreach, high_risk_decisions, processes_voice, processes_biometrics
Primary source: official statute text, Korea Legislation Research Institute (KLRI) English translation