Today, Věra Jourová, Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, Mr. Lee Hyo-seong, Chairman of the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), and Mr. Jeong Hyun-cheol, Vice President of the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA) met in Brussels to exchange views on ways to further strengthen cooperation between the EU and Korea on data protection and data flows issues.
In their discussions, they recognized the work carried out over the course of the last months by the KCC, KISA and the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers of the European Commission, which has significantly strengthened the mutual understanding of the EU and Korean data protection systems.
They stressed the importance of the protection of personal data as a fundamental right and a central factor of consumer trust in the data economy, which also facilitates mutual data flows. They reaffirmed the need to ensure a high level of privacy and data security and expressed their readiness to enhance cooperation in promoting strong data protection standards, both bilaterally and at multilateral level. In this respect, Commissioner Jourová welcomed the decision of Korea to join Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data (Convention 108) as an observer, as a possible first step towards full participation as a Party to the Convention.
They underlined the importance of data in a digitalized economy and expressed their commitment to continue and further strengthen the dialogue, both at political and technical level.
Both sides acknowledged that recent reforms of their respective privacy legislation have further increased the convergence between the EU and Korean data protection systems, which rests notably on a core set of data protection principles, enforceable individual rights and oversight by independent authorities. This offers new opportunities to further facilitate data exchanges, including through an adequacy finding. They agreed to intensify the efforts towards swiftly achieving this common objective in 2018.
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