15 KakaoTalk accounts wiretapped in H1

[THE INVESTOR] Kakao Corp.,the operator of the nation’s most popular mobile messenger KakaoTalk, said on Aug. 3 that it has provided the government access to 15 user accounts following its wiretap request in the first half of this year.

Amid privacy concerns among its users, the Korean internet giant started providing chat records of KakaoTalk to cooperate with serious criminal investigations from October last year. The company has also published a transparency report twice a year.

Adding to the wiretap requests, a total of 261,884 search warrants were issued to read user conversations in the January-June period, which compared to 163,354 warrants a year ago.

The company said it didn’t comply to 662 requests asking for more detailed information of the user accounts, including names and addresses.

In the report, Kakao didn’t specify the names of the government organizations that made the requests.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)