A police officer was caught after unlawfully obtaining the personal information of a famous trot singer and visiting their home.
According to Daejeon MBC on the 5th, a female police officer in her 30s from Chungnam Police Agency was charged with misconduct.
Last April, the officer visited the home of a famous trot singer in Seoul after unlawfully obtaining the address through the police department’s internal network.
Normally, police officers can only obtain personal information during investigation cases and for those cases, the officers must obtain approval from a superior officer.
However, this officer never reported to her superior when obtaining such information and was therefore charged with violating the Personal Information Protection Act. She was immediately dismissed from her position and is awaiting her disciplinary charges.
The revised Personal Information Protection Act strictly prohibits the use of personal information for private purposes, and violations can result in up to five years in prison or a fine of up to $42,000. Nevertheless, similar cases of officers accessing citizens’ private information have been more prevalent recently.
Last year, a police officer was sent to the prosecution for illegally accessing the license plate number of his ex-girlfriend. The Gimcheon Police Station in Gyeongbuk, affiliated with the Gumi Police Station, sent the officer to the prosecution with the charges of violating the Personal Information Protection Act and other charges on May 7, 2021.
The officer was accused of illegally using the police network to find out his ex-girlfriend’s address by looking up her car registration. According to the police, the officer not only used the obtained license plate number to find the address but also harassed her at an apartment in Gumi City around 11 PM on March 28 that year. The ex-girlfriend’s roommate reported the incident to the police.
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