Korean Law in English
Laws › Personal Information Protection Act › SECTION 2 Restriction on Processing of Personal Information

Personal Information Protection Act — Article 23 (Restriction on processing of sensitive information)

개인정보 보호법 제23조

This English translation is based on the Korean text effective 2025-10-02. The Korean law has since been amended (current version effective 2026-09-11) — check the Korean original.

(1) A personal information controller shall not process any information prescribed by Presidential Decree (hereinafter referred to as "sensitive information"), including ideology, belief, admission to or withdrawal from a trade union or political party, political opinions, health, sex life, and other personal information that is likely to markedly threaten the privacy of any data subject; provided, this shall not apply in any of the following circumstances: <Amended on Mar. 29, 2016>

1. Where the personal information controller informs a data subject of the matters provided for in Article 15 (2) or 17 (2), and obtains the consent of the data subject apart from the consent to the processing of other personal information;

2. Where other statutes or regulations require or permit the processing of sensitive information.

(2) Where a personal information controller processes sensitive information pursuant to paragraph (1), the personal information controller shall take measures necessary to ensure safety pursuant to Article 29 so that the sensitive information may not be lost, stolen, divulged, forged, altered, or damaged. <Added on Mar. 29, 2016>

(3) Where a personal information controller deems that there is a risk of privacy invasion because sensitive information of the data subject is included in the information disclosed in the course of the provision of goods or services, the personal information controller shall communicate to the data subject the possibility of disclosure of sensitive information and the method of selecting non-disclosure in an easily understandable manner before providing the goods or services. <Added on Mar. 14, 2023>

‹ Article 22-2All articlesArticle 24 ›

Korean original (law.go.kr) · Get articles as JSON via API

For AI agents and developers — get this article as JSON, with the English and current Korean effective dates and an outdated-translation flag, from the korea-law API or as an MCP tool: https://mcp.apify.com?tools=kr-data/korea-law