South Korean president calls for tougher penalties after data leak

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said on Tuesday the massive customer data leak from e-commerce platform Coupang CPNG.N is a wake-up call for stronger protection of digital privacy and ordered plans to raise fines and penalties for such lapses.

Lee said at a cabinet meeting it was "astonishing" Coupang did not even detect the breach itself for five months from when the incident first started, and those responsible for the leak must be quickly identified and held responsible.

South Korean police have launched an investigation into the leak of personal information of more than 33 million customers of the country's largest e-commerce platform that has rapidly expanded its customer base and is branching into new services.

"The wrong practice and the idea of not giving necessary care for personal data protection, which is a key asset in the age of artificial intelligence and digitalization, must be completely changed," Lee said.

He asked for a review of changes to fines and punitive damage compensation to reflect the seriousness of similar cases.

Coupang has apologised for the incident and police are probing whether there were vulnerabilities in its systems that led to the country's worst data breach in more than a decade.

Coupang was founded by Korean American Bom Kim in 2010 and is backed by Japan's SoftBank Group 9984.T. It said customer names, email and home addresses and phone numbers were exposed by the data leak.

The breach is believed to have first occurred in June, but Coupang's report to government authorities was made in November.

-Jack Kim/Reuters