Plaintiff 1 and 167 others (Law Firm Dongwon et al., Counsel for the plaintiff-appellant)

Defendant 1 and one other (Attorney Park Young-soo, Counsel for the defendant-appellant)

August 20, 2013

1. The Defendants jointly and severally pay to each of the Plaintiffs 20,000 won with 5% interest per annum from February 4, 2013 to September 24, 2013, and 20% interest per annum from the next day to the day of full payment.

2. The plaintiffs' remaining claims against the defendants are dismissed.

3. Of the litigation costs, 60% is borne by the Plaintiff, and the remainder is borne by the Defendants, respectively.

4. Paragraph 1 can be provisionally executed.

The defendants jointly and severally pay to each of the plaintiffs 5 million won and 20% interest per annum from the day after the day of service of the complaint to the day of full payment.

1. Facts of recognition;

(a) Establishment of a promotion committee and provision of call services;

(1) The Plaintiffs are members of the private taxi association in Gwangju, and private taxi business operators.

B. On February 13, 2008, the corporation, the corporation, the individual taxi driver, and the individual taxi driver of Gwangju-si organized the committee for promotion of the taxi brand business in Gwangju-si (Article 1 of the articles of incorporation of the promotion committee provides that the name "GJ Call Steering Committee"; hereinafter referred to as "promotion committee") and recruited its members, and entered into a call control system supply contract (hereinafter referred to as the " call control system of this case" provided by the above leader (hereinafter referred to as "the call control system of this case"), with subsidies from Gwangju-si.

Article 22(1) of the Act on the Promotion of International Cooperation and Trade, Etc. (hereinafter referred to as the “Act on the Promotion of International Cooperation and Trade, Etc.”) provides the following services:

B. Structure and characteristics of the call control system of this case

(i) If a call service provider (branch call) automatically enters the location of a customer into a computer, the call control system of this case requests the difference between the passenger and the vehicle nearest to the customer’s location automatically. The vehicle dispatch method is also possible in the designated vehicle in the best condition of the vehicle and all vehicles located on the vehicle located within a certain radius and the designated vehicle in the nearest vehicle for the approval request.

For the purpose of speedy distribution, the call control system of this case collected the location information of all the vehicle of the call service members at one minute intervals, stored the data in the joint server located in the KTDC Center, and transmitted letters on the screen of the vehicle located within a certain distance of time by utilizing the already collected location information by the customer when communicating.

The call control system of this case, which is provided by the conductor, provides the function of automatic storage and management of typ typ typ typ typ typ typ typ typ typ typ typ typ typ typ typ typ. In the case of a corporation taxi, the function of this function is to automatically transmit, manage, and keep typ typ

(c) the establishment of a branch call for a stock company and the provision of call services;

On June 2008, some members of the Promotion Committee decided to establish call service (hereinafter referred to as “stock company’s ground call”) in order to process taxes from the purchase of call equipment, operate call centers later, etc. Accordingly, Defendant 2 completed the registration of incorporation with the representative director on June 25, 2008, Defendant 2 continued to provide call service to the members including the Plaintiffs while operating the instant call control system on behalf of the Promotion Committee.

(d) Collecting location information by Defendant 1 and Defendant 2;

(1) Defendant 1 and Defendant 2 are those who worked as promoters at the above promotion committee, and Defendant 1 is the former duties of the Gwangju Taxi Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “Gwang-si”).

Luxembourg-si Co., Ltd. and Dokdong Co., Ltd. used the first and second floors of the same building located in Gwangju City as their offices. At the request of the 2nd floor office of the instant call control system at the time of the establishment of the instant call control system, the Dogman changed the program so that all members of the call control system of this case can be seen as the location information from the computer of the Gwangju-si Office to the monitoring of the present situation of the operation of the call control system of this case to the 1st floor office of the same building at the request of the Gwangju-si Co., Ltd. at the request of the 2nd floor office at the time of the establishment of the instant call control system.

E. Criminal punishment against Defendant 1

Although Defendant 1 did not collect, use, or provide the location information of the relevant individual or mobile object without the consent of the individual or owner, Defendant 1 collected the location information of the relevant individual or mobile object without obtaining the consent of the individual or owner, using the call control center program (on April 13, 2008 through July 27, 2012) at the Gwangju-si office located in the city of Gwangju, a stock company located in the city of Gwangju, without obtaining the consent of the private taxi in Gwangju, by using the call control center program (on the map display program identifying the location of the vehicle)." The summary order was indicted for a suspected violation of the Act on the Protection, Use, etc. of Location Information, and was issued a summary order of KRW 3 million at this Court on August 13, 2012, and the summary order was finalized on September 27, 2012.

[Ground of recognition] A without any dispute, Gap's evidence 1 through 3, 6, 8, 11, 15, Eul's evidence 1 and 2, non-party 2's testimony and the whole purport of the pleading

2. Determination

(a) Related statutes;

Article 15(1) of the Act on the Protection, Use, etc. of Location Information provides that “No person shall collect, use, or provide location information of an individual or mobile object without the consent of the individual or the owner of the mobile object.”

(b) Occurrence of liability;

(1) As seen earlier, Defendant 1’s establishment of a connection line from the instant call control system computer to monitor the operation of the call control system via the Gwangju taxi office’s computer. (2) According to the purport of the entire argument of this case, the Plaintiffs, an individual taxi business entity, did not consent to monitoring their vehicle location information by Defendant 1, a Gwangju taxi business entity, and Defendant 1 also did not request the Plaintiffs to allow access to and use of location information. (3) The term “collection and use of location information” prohibited under Article 15(1) of the Act on the Protection, Use, etc. of Location Information, does not mean only where the actor stores or stores location information so as to maintain continuity, but also it is reasonable to view that it constitutes “collection and use of location information” of the Plaintiff’s illegal act, which is an illegal act, even after the Plaintiff’s establishment of Gwangju taxi business entity, constitutes an illegal act of collecting and using location information of the Plaintiff’s computer control system. Thus, it is also reasonable to deem that the Plaintiffs’ consent to the use of location information of the computer control system and its unlawful act.

Therefore, the defendants are jointly and severally liable for damages arising from the tort as joint tortfeasor.

Shes argument of the Defendants

The Defendants asserted that Defendant 1 did not intentionally or negligently peruse the plaintiffs' location information, but the Gwangju taxi company shall collect data from typists belonging to Gwangju-si, and that the program was installed so that it is impossible to separately install the program that peruses and operates typ information and the program that reads and operates the call control system due to the characteristics of the call control system of this case and the program that separates and operates the call control system. Thus, the Defendants are not liable for damages against the plaintiffs (where the subject of personal location information claims damages against the location information provider, etc. due to violations of the Act on the Protection, Use, etc. of Location Information, the location information provider, etc. cannot be exempted from liability unless it proves that there was no intentional or negligent act (the latter part of Article 27 of the above Act).

Therefore, according to the testimony of the public health team and the witness non-party 2, typ information installed in the company taxi can be automatically stored in the main body, and the storage of typ information can only be possible and perused through the office computer of the Gwangju taxi company. If the purpose of collecting only necessary typ information was to collect typ information, it is sufficient to download or peruse typ information stored in the main body for a fixed period of time, even though it should be sufficient to confirm typ information, it is still acceptable in light of the empirical rule that the defendants allowed typ information using the computer of the office of Gwangju taxi company to use the computer of the office of Gwangju taxi company for the computer of the instant call control system, and therefore, it is recognized that the defendants had no intention or negligence to collect illegal location information without obtaining the consent, while recognizing that the location information of other vehicles than the vehicles belonging to Gwangju taxi company will be displayed on the computer monitoring screen of the computer screen.

C. The plaintiffs' additional assertion

Although the plaintiffs alleged that they suffered economic loss by taking advantage of the plaintiffs' location information illegally collected by the defendants, excluding the plaintiffs at the time of boarding cars to customers using call service, and giving them priority to taxi belonging to Gwangju-si Co., Ltd., but it is not sufficient to recognize the above facts of the plaintiffs' assertion only with the entries of No. 5-1 through No. 20, No. 13, and No. 14, and the personal questioning result of plaintiff 76, and there is no other evidence to acknowledge them, the above plaintiffs' assertion is groundless.

D. Determination of damages

Since the defendants' illegal location information collection leads to the empirical rule that the plaintiffs suffered considerable mental suffering, such as exposure to their taxi operation information, etc., the defendants should pay consolation money to compensate the plaintiffs for mental suffering. The amount of consolation money should be first considered in terms of the period of collecting the plaintiffs' location information of this case and the method of collecting location information. The defendants did not obtain any economic benefits through the location information stored or perused by the defendants, although they allowed access to the plaintiffs' location information of this case, they anticipated in advance that their location information will be collected and used by the call control system operator due to the characteristics of call service when the plaintiffs become a member of the call control system, and therefore, it seems that the mental suffering suffered from the collection of others' location information of this case would be severe, and it is reasonable to determine the amount of consolation money as KRW 20 million per each plaintiffs, taking into account the personal relations of the plaintiffs and the defendants, and various circumstances specified in the oral proceedings of this case.

3. Conclusion

Therefore, the defendants are jointly and severally liable to pay to the plaintiffs 20,000 won, each of which is the day following the delivery date of a copy of the complaint of this case, to the plaintiffs, 5% per annum under the Civil Act from February 4, 2013 to September 24, 2013, the sentencing date of this case, and 20% per annum under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Promotion, etc. of Legal Proceedings from the next day to the day of full payment. Thus, each of the claims against the defendants of this case against the defendants are justified within the above recognition scope, and each of the remaining claims is dismissed as without merit. It is so decided as per Disposition.

Judges Bo Jinia