Personal Information Protection Commission opens third consultation round

The Personal Information Protection Commission said it will accept applications from Aug. 11 through Aug. 31 for a third consultation round for agents handling personal-data transfer requests, after earlier pilots revealed demand from data-scraping services.

The additional round is intended to identify demand that had been difficult to track across services and to help prevent interruptions as providers shift to safer transfer methods.

Small operators and businesses without MyData qualifications can apply. The commission will examine their service models and security levels.

The personal-data transfer request system takes effect Aug. 20 under a revised enforcement decree of the Personal Information Protection Act. The commission began supporting consultations between public institutions and agents in June.

About 700 requests came in two pilot rounds: about 150 from about 70 businesses and institutions in the first, and about 550 from about 300 in the second.

"The goal of the personal-data transfer request system is not to suddenly stop services people have used, but to keep necessary services running while making personal-data transfers safer," Yang Cheong-sam, secretary general of the Personal Information Protection Commission, said.

Scraping lets an agent access an institution's system using a user's ID, password or other authentication credentials. The commission cited risks including excessive data collection, credential leaks and use of information beyond the stated purpose.

During consultations, the commission will discuss the scope of information to be transferred, methods for verifying agents, automated-tool access and authentication levels, and agents' protection and safety measures.

Rather than ban scraping outright, the commission plans to permit agreed-upon scraping with safeguards while moving over the longer term to transfers based on application programming interfaces, or APIs.

Applicants can submit through OnMyData or the People's Petition portal and receive support to keep existing methods temporarily during consultations.