Editorial: What did Samsung’s company-wide union plan to do with data on 100,000 employees?

Samsung Electronics’ company-wide union is facing a police referral to prosecutors over allegations involving personal information from more than 100,000 employees. The question raised by the editorial headline is blunt: what did the union intend to do with the data?

The Hwaseong-Dongtan Police Station referred union leader Choi Seung-ho and another union official to prosecutors without detention on charges of violating South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act. Police investigated the case for about five months.

Investigators allege that the union official, who handled work related to the company’s internal systems, obtained a file containing employee information and handed it to the union. Choi is accused of using the information to create a list of employees who had not joined the union.

The alleged leak took place around March, as tensions intensified over the union’s demand for performance bonuses equal to 15% of Samsung Electronics’ operating profit. Samsung said in an internal notice in April that it had confirmed the circulation in a group messenger room of lists containing the department names, names, employee numbers and union membership status of dozens of employees or more. The company filed a complaint against an employee accused of collecting large amounts of staff information without authorization.

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We confirmed that list materials containing the department names, names, employee numbers and union membership status of dozens of employees or more had been circulated in a group messenger room of a specific department.