Some 28.1 percent of the people who use online shopping platforms say they have had their personal information stolen, a survey conducted by the Seoul Metropolitan Government showed Friday.
The survey also showed that 78 percent of the respondents fear having their information leaked, with 30.2 percent saying using they have already experienced problems with online shopping. These included faulty products (65.6 percent), delayed delivery (42.7 percent), and false or exaggerated advertisements (30.1 percent).
The survey was conducted on Oct. 2-14 on 1,000 people using online shopping.
A substantial proportion of the respondents issued complaints over customer services, with 41.1 percent saying they experienced inconvenience while connecting to the customer center. Some 39.4 percent said they were not satisfied with the responses created by artificial intelligence, which were often standardized and not related to the situation at hand.
The respondents noted that the use of AI had both advantages such as finding products that they did not know of or are in accordance with their preferences. The disadvantages included advertisements for products that they do not need.
The city plans to keep monitoring unfair acts and deception of consumers from the online business operators.
South Korea recently faced a number of consumer information leaks related to online shopping platforms, which suggests the extent of data theft could be much larger than most consumers realize.
The 2025 mass data breach involving Coupang, the country's largest online retailer, led to an estimated 34 million consumers being affected by the incident. The type of information stolen included names, email and postal addresses, phone numbers, and even the passwords to the entrances of their apartment buildings.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
