Bucheon leaks personal data of 17,000 residents after passing records to neighborhood association heads

The personal information of more than 17,000 Bucheon residents was improperly handed to neighborhood association heads conducting field surveys, the city disclosed Friday.

City officials said they immediately retrieved and destroyed the distributed records and have begun drafting measures to prevent a recurrence.

Bucheon held an emergency press conference at the city hall briefing room Friday, disclosing the circumstances of the data leak at the Wonjong 1-dong community service center and outlining steps to address the fallout.

The incident occurred Sept. 10, when the Wonjong 1-dong community service center was organizing in-person visits to households that had not participated in a non-face-to-face resident registration survey.

Twenty-two neighborhood association heads serving as field surveyors requested resident lists to help with their visits. The center provided them with a document containing the resident registration numbers, contact details and other sensitive information of 8,512 households — 17,164 people in total.

After learning of the breach Wednesday, the city immediately retrieved and destroyed all copies of the list. An investigation found the information had not been passed to any third party or leaked further beyond the association heads who handled the surveys, and no cases of harm have been confirmed so far.

The city filed an official report with the Personal Information Protection Commission and sent text messages to all affected households explaining how the leak occurred and what steps they could take.

The city also posted a public notice on its official website and set up a dedicated complaint-handling team and consultation desk to receive reports of harm and provide guidance.

Bucheon plans to conduct a comprehensive inspection of resident registration survey practices across all 37 community service centers in the city.

The city also said it would sharply increase personal data protection training for staff — from twice a year to once per quarter — and pursue special training for field surveyors and improvements to its data management systems to prevent any recurrence.

"We will make the protection of residents' personal information our top priority and do everything we can to prevent secondary harm and restore public trust," a city official said.