The Korean Personal Information Protection Committee recently stated that the National Assembly has unanimously passed an amendment to the Personal Information Protection Act, allowing AI developers to use limited personal data after review by the committee. This breaks the rigid constraints of the current law that "personal information can only be used for the explicitly specified purpose at the time of collection, and consent from the individual is required for using it for AI development."
The Korean AI industry has long complained that the original law restricted technology development based on original personal data. Previous exemptions applied only to scenarios such as voice anti-fraud and autonomous robots, with a term of two years, extendable up to four years.
The new amendment will take effect six months after approval by the State Council. The committee plans to solicit opinions from experts and the industry to develop specific guidelines and subordinate laws. While the new regulations ease restrictions on local AI training, they also incorporate "review and control" into the process, meaning the boundaries of personal data usage are still determined by regulation rather than by companies themselves.
