South Korea's Constitutional Court dismissed a petition alleging the government's use of facial recognition data collected during immigration screening for private sector AI training was unconstitutional.
The court announced Thursday at its grand bench that it unanimously dismissed the constitutional petition filed by individuals whose biometric and personal data had been collected. The petitioners had sought a ruling on the unconstitutionality of facial and abnormal behavior data collection and storage by the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Science and ICT.
A dismissal means the court terminated proceedings without ruling on the merits due to failure to meet procedural requirements.
In 2019, the government launched the "AI Identification and Tracking System Development Project," providing facial data collected by the Ministry of Justice for immigration control purposes to private companies. The stated goal was to promote AI facial recognition technology development. However, when this became public around October 2021, controversy erupted, and the project was terminated in December of that year.
The petitioners argued that "the processing of personal information went against the wishes of the data subjects and adequate protective measures for biometric and personal data were not implemented."
The court explained its decision: "The project ended in December 2021, and the facial data has since been destroyed, eliminating any interest in rights protection regarding the data transfer. Based on the Ministry of Justice's response to fact-finding inquiries, it is difficult to conclude that actions normatively equivalent to this case will be repeated."