A South Korean province is seeking to legalize the rights to be digitally forgotten in a move to protect personal information on the Internet.

Gangwon Province, east of Seoul, has joined hands with Rep. Pak Hong-geun of the main opposition Minjoo Party to submit a bill to make the rights to be digitally forgotten legal, according to the province's website.

"The bill is aimed at allowing the so-called digital rights to include the rights to erase personal information and data at any time one wants," a provincial official said. 

Under the new rights, Internet users will be able to set up a time for their personal information, their writings and files posted in cyberspace to expire or be deleted, the website said.

If the bill passes through the National Assembly, the Gangwon provincial government expects related businesses to generate more than 1,000 jobs and sales worth over 300 billion won ($269 million) in the first five years of operations.

In January, the province applied the Digital Aging System, a program to help Internet users type in their expiry dates, to its website. This month, Gangwon Province added the program to the website of Chuncheon, and plans to spread the use of it across all cities in the province within this year. (Yonhap)