Rep. Kwon Eun-hee of the ruling Saenuri Party and member of the Science, ICT, Future Planning, Broadcasting and Communications Committee of the National Assembly, said the use of stolen names for hand phones has become serious enough to warrant legal measures to stop the practice, quoting materials she got from the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning. 

The legislator from the North Daegu District said the use of stolen names for hand phones has become as serious as “voice fishing” and “smishing” in terms of the loss of private information and financial damage to those whose names were stolen.

She said the reported number of stolen names totaled 22,929 in the past five years, as reported by the three main hand phone operators in Korea, resulting in 13 billion won in damages.

Still quoting from the ministry’s report, she said the identity thieves often use bogus identity cards to use the names for their hand phones and sometimes close friends and relatives also steal names to use them as owners of their hand phones, she said. Additionally, there is also a problem with the use of names of the homeless who often lend their names for money.

The legislator said the illegal practice often occurs with the dealers of hand phones not thoroughly checking the buyers’ identities, and the letters of attorney if some one is buying a hand phone through others.

Four out of 10 who report their names were being misused ended up being the name losers due to negligence in checking the identities of hand phone buyers, she said.

The legislator also noted that only half of those who reported losses from their stolen names were reimbursed through the Korea Association for ICT Promotion, which handles the cases of hand phones with stolen names and the reimbursement for damages incurred.

Actually, the association dealt with 1,325 cases of hand phones with stolen names and solved them with reimbursement for damages, which only came to 5.8 percent of the total number of hand phones with stolen names. The damages paid on those cases amounted to only 2.6 billion won, about 20 percent of the amount requested.

Rep. Kwon said the consumers whose names were stolen did not know that their names were stolen until given the notification from an agency that handles the collection of delinquent debts including phone bills, calling on the government to come up with measures to prevent damages from stolen names for hand phones and the settlement of damages through negotiations. She also called for an improvement in the current handling of information on those whose names were stolen so that they won’t be leaked to credit collection agencies indiscriminately. 

Publisher Elizabeth M. Oh