Punish the leakers

Employees from the National Health Insurance Corporation have been accused of leaking personal health information to acquaintances and to the issuers of illegal loans.
To make matters worse, health information about the presidential hopefuls had also been leaked.
Needless to say, the Grand National Party and the people concerned are infuriated.
The prosecutors must put forth an all-out effort to delve into the issue and determine whether the employees of the NHIC have acted improperly and abused their access to information before the upcoming presidential election.
The personal information leakage by the employees from the public institution has to be seen from a broader perspective, rather than narrowly focusing on the negative effect it could have on the upcoming presidential election.
This is not the first time the public institution has infringed on personal privacy and exposed personal information.
It is time to root out these corrupt acts by punishing the accused.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has also been under suspicion of publicizing personal information on its homepage, which has drawn severe public criticism.
The jaw-dropping activities didn’t stop here. The personal information registered on the homepage of the Blue House and county offices were even available on international Internet portal sites.
It wasn’t long ago that public identification numbers, bank account numbers and cell phone numbers were posted on the homepages of the 25 district offices in Seoul.
However, the personal information leakage didn’t come to an end, due to lenient measures and lax disciplinary action.
As of now, only five employees from the NHIC have been subjected to legal measures. Although they were dismissed from their jobs, they have managed to escape harsher punishment, shrugging off their criminal liability.
The criminal laws must be followed.
Above all, the nation must galvanize discussions on the personal information protection law and systematize the current liability structure of the public institutions to safeguard personal information.
We cannot leave this matter unsettled. Making personal health information available to strangers will only generate social upheaval.