A Study on the Protection of Biometric Information against Facial Recognition Technology

In this article, the authors focus on the use of smart CCTV, a combnation of biometric recognition technology and AI algorithms. In fact, the advancements in relevant technologies brought a significant increase in the use of biometric information - fingerprint, retina, iris or facial recognition - across diverse sectors. Both the public and private sectors, with the developments of biometric technology, widely adopt and use an individual's biometric information for different reasons. For instance, smartphone users highly count on biometric technolgies for the purpose of security. Public and private orgazanitions control an access to confidential information-controlling facilities with biometric technology. Biometric infomration is known to be unique and immutable in the course of one's life. Given the uniquness and immutability, it turned out to be as reliable means for the purpose of authentication and verification. However, the use of biometric information comes with cost, posing a privacy issue. Once it is leaked, there is little chance to recover damages resulting from unauthorized uses. The governments across the country fully understand the threat to privacy rights with the use of biometric information and AI. The EU and the United States amended their data protection laws to regulate it. South Korea aligned with them. Yet, the authors point out that Korean dataaprotection law still requires more improvements to minimize a concern over privacy rights arising from the wide use of biometric information. In particular, the authors stress that it is necessary to amend Section specialIntscript of Article 23 of PIPA to reflect the concern by changing the basis for permitting the processing of sensitive information from 'the Statutes' to 'the Acts'.