At a National Assembly joint hearing on Dec. 31, lawmakers clashed over whether South Korea's National Intelligence Service intervened in the Coupang personal data leak case. The key issue was whether the NIS told Coupang to contact a leak suspect and carry out device recovery and forensics, or whether Coupang did so on its own.

Lee Jaekul, Coupang's vice president for legal affairs, replied to a question about whether the NIS ordered contact with the suspect by saying, "In early December, we received a request from the NIS that it would be good to contact the suspect, and we understood it that way." He added, "On Dec. 2, we were told through an official NIS letter that the matter was related to national security and that we had a legal duty to cooperate."

On whether the NIS clearly used the word "order", he said, "The wording was often ambiguous," adding, "We took it as a request." Choi Minhee, chair of the National Assembly's Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, said, "A request and an order are different," adding that the core issue was whether the NIS gave an explicit order to "contact the suspect."

On device recovery and the forensics process, Lee said, "After recovering the device, we asked the NIS about how to handle it, and we were told, in effect, that if it had been recovered, we could handle it as we saw fit." On whether there was a specific directive saying, "Conduct forensics," he said, "I cannot know whether there was such a sentence." Coupang paid the forensics costs, and no NIS employee was present, he said.

On investigation findings Coupang announced, including that it "stored 3,000 leaked data items and then deleted them," Lee said, "Coupang decided the timing and the way of the announcement on its own," adding, "We have never received an order from the NIS to make an announcement."

The government denied allegations of NIS intervention. Bae Kyung-hoon, deputy prime minister and minister of science and ICT, said, "Coupang is currently under simultaneous investigation by a joint public-private investigation team, the police and the Personal Information Protection Commission," adding, "More important than whether there was contact with the NIS is confirming that seized materials were brought in legally, are examined under the same standards, and match the results of existing investigations."

Bae said the joint public-private team requested about 160 items of material but had received only about 50 so far. He said it was not appropriate that an announcement of the leak's scale and a compensation plan came out before the investigation results were sufficiently organised. He stressed that verifying investigation results transparently based on facts should come before debates over interpretation.