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Google Exposing Thousands of Korean ID Numbers

Cracks in Korea's Online Industry Must Be Closed Internet Providers Face Class Action Suit Over Data Leak Korea Produces Safer Online Registration Guidelines Bigger, More Dangerous Hacker Attacks Threaten Net Industry Portals Withhold Leak Info From Members Concerns Mount Over Massive 'Auction' Info Leak Web Firms to Face Heavy Penalties for Info Leaks Auction Identity Thieves Nabbed A query of Excel documents under "residence registration number" on the Internet search engine Google generates some 6,900 results, most of them containing national identification numbers. One search result shows a file containing the ID numbers and mobile phone numbers of the 2006 steering committee of an elementary school in Busan. The document had already been deleted from the school's website, but the Google search results showed the intact file. Another file showed the names and residence registration numbers of 933 people. The file, apparently medical records, listed even the weight of patients. The exposed ID numbers could be used to set up mobile phone numbers or even credit card accounts under other people's names, but Google insists it has no way of stopping this from happening, raising fears of a rise in identity theft. According to a survey of Google search results on residence registration numbers by the Korea Information Security Agency, the personal IDs of 164,536 individuals were exposed during the first half of this year alone. A total of 60,558 websites had exposed the IDs of Koreans. Considering the incidents that KISA was unable to discover, the actual extent of identity exposure could be much higher. KISA developed a software program that automatically detects the exposure of residence registration numbers and began monitoring such incidents in July last year. But with thousands of national ID numbers being exposed daily, it is difficult for KISA to ferret out each case. An official at KISA said it is a lot of trouble having to confirm each time residence registration numbers are exposed and ask the webmaster of that particular site and Google to delete the information. Other Internet portals like Naver and Yahoo Korea take precautionary measures to prevent ID exposure. For example, those portals exclude from their search functions groupings of numbers in "XXXXXX-XXXXXXX" format like Korean residence registration numbers. But Google Korea is refusing, citing its policy of maintaining the free flow of information. Lois Kim, head of communications at Google Korea, said the company is not directly responsible since the ID numbers are not saved in Google, and the search engine merely looks up the IDs contained in various websites. But a bigger problem is that it is not easy for individual victims of identity exposure even to ask Google to delete their ID numbers. Such a request made online requires Google membership, and the entire process takes a week. Over that period, the damage could spread. One Korean citizen said Google Korea does not even operate a customer service center, making it difficult to report one's own ID being exposed in cyberspace. Another Korean said when Google entered the Chinese market, however, the search engine promised the government it would not show the results of queries involving certain words, showing what the Internet user called "double standards" in dealing with the two countries.