OMM Newsroom
Personal information belonging to South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, his wife, security guards and other members of his entourage was uploaded to a public website, where it remained accessible to third parties for five months.
“Operative Information Center-OMM” reports, citing Yonhap, that South Korean police have launched an investigation into the incident.
According to the report, passport details of 168 people who are believed to have travelled to Europe with the president in June were leaked.
On June 2, before the trip, a file titled “Passenger list (South Korea – Belgium)” was uploaded to a paid website for scanning for computer viruses. The document contained people’s names, dates of birth, positions, foreign passport numbers and expiry dates.
The leak affected not only the president and his wife but also the head of state’s security service, staff of the Presidential Administration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, journalists, stylists and a personal doctor.
The list even included details of people who checked the president’s food before it was served to him.
The file is believed to have been available for download by other website subscribers for five months, until it was deleted.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said appropriate measures had been taken and new passports would be prepared for the president and his wife. However, it said there was no indication that their personal information had fallen into the hands of outsiders.
One theory is that the file may have been uploaded by an employee of the protocol service responsible for overseas trips at South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Presidential Administration, in turn, said the necessary measures had been taken in response to the incident.
