[2026 National Assembly Audit] TVING CEO: "Suspected AI Hack"... Privacy Commission: "Action to Be Finalized by Year-End"

Personal Information Protection Commission: "Will assess whether TVING's compensation is effective"
Google: "Information leaked due to employee error... under review"

Choi Joohee, CEO of TVING, said the recent large-scale leak of 39.54 million records of personal information is believed to have resulted from a hacking attack using artificial intelligence (AI). The Personal Information Protection Commission plans to complete its investigation and impose sanctions by the end of the year.

From right, Yoon Gu, CEO of Google Korea; Choi Joohee, CEO of TVING; Hong Seungil, CEO of Healing Paper (Gangnam Unni); and Lee Sangwoon, chief information security officer (CISO) of KT, take the witness oath during a parliamentary audit held by the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee on the 13th. Yonhap News.

At a National Assembly audit by the Political Affairs Committee on October 13, Representative Cho Jung-hoon of the People Power Party asked, "Was the TVING hack also based on AI?" Choi replied, "That is what we believe." She said the police are investigating how the hacker first gained access to TVING's systems.

Regarding the cause of the data breach, she said, "We have continued to invest in security, but, to my shame, I don't think I gave it enough priority to make sure it was sufficient as the CEO."

The Personal Information Protection Commission plans to finalize its action over TVING's data breach by the end of the year. When Representative Kim Hyun-jung of the Democratic Party of Korea asked when a fine would be imposed, Commission Chairperson Song Kyung-hee said, "We are working to finalize the action by the end of the year."

Kim criticized the compensation plan TVING offered to victims of the data breach, saying it focused on encouraging them to use the company's services. "Is steering people toward paying for your own service and handing out coupons for your affiliates genuine compensation for victims? The reality is that it is being criticized as a sales ploy," she said. She stressed, "If TVING does not submit an additional compensation plan, the Commission should investigate this incident more rigorously and impose the highest fines and sanctions permitted by law."

Chairperson Song replied, "The Personal Information Protection Commission makes decisions through a consensus process, so we will decide after deliberations among the commissioners." She added, "If the compensation plan is not effective, it will be difficult for the company to receive a fine reduction on the grounds that it compensated victims." She continued, "If we do not take compensation into account at all simply because the amount is small, other companies will have less incentive to compensate victims when such incidents occur. We will take that into account and examine the matter thoroughly."

Healing Paper, the company behind Gangnam Unni, which suffered a leak of beauty and medical information, also acknowledged that its security investments had failed to keep pace with the company's growth. "I believe our investment in dedicated security staff and solutions was inadequate relative to the company's growth and the increase in service users," said Hong Seungil, CEO of Healing Paper.

The audit also addressed the leak of personal information belonging to victims of digital sex crimes from Google. Yoon Gu, CEO of Google Korea, said that regarding how victims' personal information was leaked to an external research database (DB), "The proper procedure is for such information not to be shared in the first place, but some information was leaked due to human error by an employee."

He said plans to notify, support, and compensate individual victims were "still under internal review." He also could not provide specific figures for additional deletion requests or the progress of a comprehensive investigation. In response, Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Park Hong-bae scolded him, saying, "Why did you even come here?" Yoon replied, "I'm sorry."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.