Police have launched a full-scale investigation into KakaoPay over allegations that the company transferred personal information of tens of millions of customers to China's Alipay.
The Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency said Thursday that it began the investigation last month after receiving a request from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) and assigning the case. The agency has booked KakaoPay as a corporate entity on suspicion of violating the Credit Information Use and Protection Act and is currently conducting its probe.
According to the FSS investigation, KakaoPay transmitted a total of 54.2 billion pieces of personal information belonging to approximately 40.45 million users — its entire user base — to Alipay between 2018 and May 2024.
The transfer occurred when Apple iPhone users registered KakaoPay as a payment method, with KakaoPay sending user information to Apple, which then received the data by routing it through Alipay. The information sent to Alipay reportedly included sensitive data such as encrypted mobile phone numbers, email addresses, and top-up balances.
The case first came to light in August last year through an FSS announcement, after which the civic group Free Korea Patriots Association filed a complaint against KakaoPay's management with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office. Seoul's Suseo Police Station, which took over the case from prosecutors, initially sought to close the case early on the grounds that the FSS investigation was still underway, but the Gyeonggi Nambu police took on the probe again after the FSS formally requested an investigation.
Earlier this month, the FSS concluded its investigation and imposed heavy sanctions on KakaoPay equivalent to an "institutional warning," along with a penalty surcharge of 12.976 billion won and a fine of 4.8 million won.
