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South Korean government provided 170M facial images to private AI developers without consent

The South Korean government transferred approximately 170 million facial images of travelers obtained during immigration screening at Incheon International Airport to private companies for AI development without obtaining consent. The data included images of South Korean and foreign nationals. The project, an AI identification and tracking system, is ongoing. Critics call it a violation of digital rights at an unprecedented scale.

Date it happened
2020-01-01
Organisation involved
South Korean government (Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Science and ICT)
Product, system or model
AI identification and tracking system
Where this came from
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This incident was imported from hani.co.kr. Our additions to it — the structured fields, the translation, the checks against other reports — are published under the same licence.

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