hankyoreh

Kim Jae-seob, Staff Writer　

Exposures of personal information from users of social networking services (SNS) like Twitter and Facebook have reached dangerous levels, a study shows. The information that is being leaked includes not only name, address, birth date, and family details but also details about individuals’ political leanings and criminal history.

Through the Korea Internet Security Agency, the Korea Communications Commission conducted a study of information leakages on Jan. 10 to 13 that examined 200 IDs of Korean Twitter users. According to the findings, which were announced Monday, some 88 percent of the users revealed their real name, 86 percent gave information about their personal connections, 84 percent gave information about their appearance, and 83 percent revealed their current location.

Additionally, 64 percent of users exposed information about hobbies, 63 percent about their schedule, 52 percent about their family relationship and members of their family, 50 percent about their workplace and group affiliations, 49 percent about purchasing records and consumption tendencies, 38 percent about academic attainment, 31 percent about their birth date and work address, and 29 percent about medical details such as past medical conditions. Information was leaked about political leanings for 19 percent, military service for 13 percent, height and weight for 8 percent, criminal history for 4 percent, school grades for 3 percent, and bank account details for 2 percent, the study found.

In most cases, the users’ information was exposed through tweets or through personal home pages and blogs linked by URL. These represented cases not of deliberate exposure of information by users, but of exposure without their knowledge during the use of services. For example, in the case of a user who posted a tweet reading, “My throat did not feel good this morning, and I thought I might have a cold because of the colder weather, but the doctor said I had a thyroid problem. Be careful, everyone,” the fact that the user was suffering from a thyroid ailment was exposed.

“The problem is this severe even though Twitter is restricted to one-way posts of under 140 characters and has relatively little exposure of personal information,” said Han Ji-hye, an official with the KCC’s Privacy Protection and Ethics Division. “In the case of IDs that link Facebook, Google Buzz, me2day, and so forth, there were even detections of information about bank account balances and places where credit cards were used.”

The exposure of personal information has the effect of creating a sense of intimacy and confidence with others linked by SNS through the revelation of details about oneself. However, because this information can be misused for corporate marketing or political purposes, users should make efforts, whenever possible, to minimize this exposure and restrict it to family members and friends. The KCC announced personal information protection rules Monday advising users to carefully choose the scope of the personal information posted on SNS and to avoid recklessly exposing personal information for friends and family, as this information can be used by anyone.

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