The performance details are as follows:
- A Hong, who received a 50 million KRW home mortgage loan from A Bank
- A person in her 40s who received a medical checkup at Hospital B
- A woman who subscribed to the Price Plan 55 of C Telecom Company
- A resident of Seoul who frequently uses the D Department Store
If each and every items of the pseudonym information is combined, we can learn the personal information of a specific person named “Hong Gil-soon, a 48-year-old woman living in Mapo-gu, Seoul, with an early form thyroid cancer, having a home loan of 50 million KRW, using a mobile phone under the 55 Price Plan, and who is an excellent customer of the D Department Store. Thus, the pseudonym information is not absolutely secure and may be used as personal information at any time, which may cause damage related to the consumer’s personal information.
It is said that, if it is processed as pseudonym so that an individual cannot be identified, there is no risk of the leakage of personal information; but when this pseudonym information is combined, an individual can easily be revealed. Since the main purpose of applying a pseudonym is to make the information widely available to use, if a personal information leakage takes place damage will occur, and the damage is more worrying and serious. Therefore, the use of pseudonym information for industrial research purposes or others should be determined with alertness to these dangers and should be performed as carefully as possible.