Is Your Privacy Policy Actually Compliant?

When assessing a company's privacy posture for the first time on a consulting engagement, what do I look at first? The internal management plan? The risk assessment? No. The privacy policy published on their website.

The reason is simple. A privacy policy is a legally mandated public document that anyone can access at any time. It contains everything — what personal data the company collects, who it's shared with, and how it's protected. A well-written policy usually signals solid internal practices. A sloppy one almost always means the internals are sloppy too.

Because privacy policies must maintain a revision history and a comparison table of old vs. new versions whenever they're updated, you can trace back whether the company has been keeping up with legislative amendments and new guidelines in a timely manner. In April 2025, the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) issued a revised "Privacy Policy Drafting Guide" — let's use that as a benchmark to check whether your company's policy holds up.

Why You Need to Keep Revisiting Your Privacy Policy

A privacy policy is not a write-once-and-forget document.

Korea's Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) is continuously amended, enforcement decrees and public notices change, and the PIPC releases new guidelines on a regular basis. Failing to reflect these changes in time isn't just a legal violation — it also means data subjects can't properly understand their own rights.

In practice, a company's revision history tells you a lot about how seriously they take privacy. If months have passed since a legislative amendment with no update to the policy? That's not just poor document management — it's a signal that the internal protection framework itself isn't functioning properly.

The 2025 Drafting Guide identifies four principles for establishing and revising privacy policies: legal compliance, transparency and accuracy, clarity and readability, and accessibility.

2025 Drafting Guide — Disclosure Checklist

The April 2025 revised guide organizes required disclosures into 24 items total — a mix of mandatory, conditionally required, and recommended items. Let's walk through them.

Starting with mandatory items: the title (in the format "OOO Privacy Policy"), purpose of processing, categories of personal data processed, processing and retention periods, destruction procedures and methods, security safeguards, data subjects' rights and how to exercise them, the privacy officer and grievance department, and information about policy changes — all of these must be included.

Conditionally required items include: processing of personal data of children under 14, third-party disclosures, criteria for additional use or disclosure, outsourced processing, overseas transfers, possibility of public disclosure of sensitive data and methods to prevent it, pseudonymized data processing, automated collection tools (cookies, etc.), automated decision-making, designation of a domestic representative, and operation of fixed or mobile CCTV systems.

Recommended items include: matters related to allowing third parties to collect behavioral data, remedies for infringement of data subjects' rights, and voluntary protective measures.

Even items marked "conditionally required" constitute a legal violation if they apply to your company but are missing. If you use cookies but have no section on automated collection tools, or if you have subcontractors but omit the outsourcing section — that's a problem.

Common Issues Found in Practice

Using "etc." as a Catch-All

This is the most common issue. Vaguely describing the purpose of collection as "service provision, etc." or listing collected items as "name, contact information, etc." The Drafting Guide explicitly states that abbreviations and ambiguous expressions like "etc." should not be used — be specific.

Since the amended PIPA took effect in September 2023, personal data processed without consent must be separately listed with its legal basis. Yet many companies still lump consent-based and non-consent-based collection together in a single block.

Abbreviated Third-Party and Outsourcing Lists

Writing "Company A and 00 others" is inadequate. The Guide instructs that when the number is large, companies should provide a separate page or downloadable list so data subjects can verify the full details. This is a frequent finding in audits.

Retention Period Listed as "Until Purpose Is Achieved"

Abstract expressions like "until the purpose of service use is achieved" are explicitly cited as a bad example in the Drafting Guide. If there's a legally mandated retention period, you must specify the law, article, period, and data items. Concrete periods like 5 years, 3 years, or 6 months under Article 6 of the Enforcement Decree of the Act on Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce should be stated.

This is one of the areas the 2025 Guide covers most thoroughly. Companies must separately disclose whether behavioral data is processed with or without identifying the data subject, and must also disclose behavioral data collected by third parties (via SDKs, tags, etc.). Many companies still use tools like GA4 or Meta Pixel without including this section.

Missing Automated Decision-Making Section

If AI-based automated decisions exist (Article 37-2 of PIPA), the criteria, procedures, and processing methods must be disclosed. The 2025 Guide even provides specific examples such as AI-based hiring and welfare fraud detection. With AI adoption accelerating, this is a must-check item for applicable companies.

Poor Revision History Management

Cases where previous versions of the policy can't be viewed or no old-vs-new comparison table exists. The Guide recommends listing the effective period of each previous version with clickable links to those versions. Poor revision history management puts you at a disadvantage in disputes or audits.

Immediate Inspection Checklist

If you can answer "yes" to all of the following, you've covered the basics. If any answer is "no," start by fixing that item.

Does the title include the name of the data controller?
Are processing purposes stated specifically without "etc."?
Are consent-based and non-consent-based collection clearly separated, with legal bases (including specific articles) stated?
Are collected data items listed specifically by purpose? (Including automatically generated/collected items)
Are retention periods stated as specific durations rather than abstract expressions like "until purpose is achieved"?
For legally mandated retention, are the law name, article, period, and data items all listed?
For third-party disclosures, are the recipient, purpose, items, retention period, and legal basis all stated?
For outsourced processing, are the subcontractors and outsourced tasks specifically disclosed?
For overseas transfers, are the destination country, recipient, legal basis, and opt-out method all included?
If cookies are used, are the cookie description, purpose, and rejection methods (per browser) stated?
If behavioral data is processed, is it disclosed separately for identified vs. non-identified cases?
If AI-based automated decisions exist, are the criteria, procedures, and rejection methods stated?
Are data subjects' methods for access, correction, deletion, suspension, consent withdrawal, and data portability requests specifically explained?
Does the privacy officer listing include a name (or department) and actually reachable contact information?
Is the revision history (effective dates, links to previous versions) maintained?
Can the privacy policy be accessed without logging in?
Does the content of the privacy policy match what was disclosed at the time of consent?

Whenever New Guidelines or Amendments Come Out

Inspection doesn't end after one round.

For monitoring, regularly check the PIPC website (pipc.go.kr) and the Privacy Portal (privacy.go.kr) for legislative updates and guidance documents. Also keep an eye on amendment histories for PIPA and its Enforcement Decree on the Korea Legislation Research Institute website (law.go.kr).

The update sequence goes like this: Verify whether the change applies to your company → Draft revisions to the privacy policy → Review and approval by the privacy officer → Prepare an old-vs-new comparison table → Post on the website + notify of changes → Archive the previous version.

Key timing to watch for: legislative effective dates (e.g., strengthened consent requirements on Sept. 15, 2024; domestic representative penalties effective Oct. 2025), before ISMS-P certification audits, when launching new services, and when subcontractors or third-party recipients change.

Wrap-Up

Failure to establish or disclose a privacy policy can result in fines of up to 10 million KRW (violation of Article 30 of PIPA). Penalties for not designating a domestic representative are also set to take effect from October 2025.

It's a legally mandated document, but when done well, it's also the most effective way to externally demonstrate your company's privacy capabilities. Conversely, a poor privacy policy erodes data subject trust and becomes the first target in a regulatory investigation.

References:

PIPC, "Privacy Policy Drafting Guide," April 2025
PIPC website: pipc.go.kr
Privacy Portal: privacy.go.kr
Korea Legislation Research Institute: law.go.kr