The Supreme Court has confirmed the acquittal of a shop owner who handed over a customer’s old phone, which hadn’t been reset, to the police. The 2nd division of the Supreme Court (Presiding Justice Seo Kyung-hwan) announced on the 13th that it upheld a lower court’s acquittal for Mr. A, who was charged with violating the Personal Information Protection Act. Two police officers who were tried alongside Mr. A, for allegedly receiving the phone, were also acquitted.
In 2018, Mr. A, who operated a mobile phone shop in Yeongwol, Gangwon-do, sold a new phone to customer B and received B’s old phone. Although Mr. A initially intended to reset and reuse the device, he did not do so and ended up handing it over to the police that August at their request. The old phone still contained personal information, such as photos, contacts, and text messages related to golf reservations between B and acquaintances.
The police requested the old phone from the shop as part of gathering crime-related information on B. The prosecution charged Mr. A for unauthorized provision of personal information learned through business, and accused the police of receiving it for wrongful purposes.
However, both the lower courts and the Supreme Court ruled all three individuals not guilty. They determined it was hard to classify information voluntarily left by a customer at a shop as part of the shop owner’s “business-related personal data processing.” The appellate court noted that destroying personal data left on an old phone appeared to be a simple courtesy obligation assumed by Mr. A, rather than a business duty of handling personal information. The prosecutor appealed, but the Supreme Court dismissed it, stating that the lower court’s judgment—that Mr. A did not possess or acquire the personal information in the course of business—was justified.