South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission and the Korea Internet & Security Agency will push ahead in earnest with a 2026 MyData service support programme as part of efforts to activate the MyData system, which gives people the right to request transfers of their personal data.

The commission will hold a briefing on the support programme and the expansion of the data self-transfer request at 2 p.m. on the 16th at the Korea Advertising Culture Hall in Songpa-gu, Seoul.

MyData is a system under which data subjects can have personal information about themselves sent to wherever they want, and manage and use it according to their own intentions. After an amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Personal Information Protection Act in February, the scope of where people can request their information be transferred to them, referred to as the "right to request self-transfer", was expanded from the medical, telecommunications and energy sectors to all industries.

The amended decree sets out procedures and methods for exercising the expanded right to request self-transfer in a safer way. Starting in August, the scope will expand beginning with public institutions that hold major systems, and in February next year it will broaden to private institutions and companies with large-scale systems.

The programme is intended to find and support MyData projects that have high public impact. Companies and institutions selected will receive a budget for project implementation and professional advice, including consulting. This year, the commission plans to provide a total of 1.7 billion won to 4 categories, covering 6 services, including services implementing the right to request self-transfer expanded to all industries following the decree revision.

Seung-cheol Ha (하승철), head of the MyData Promotion Team, said that with the revision of the enforcement decree of the protection law expanding self-transfer requests, a range of services that allow data subjects to use their own information safely according to their intentions would be activated. He said the programme would support the spread of the MyData system and the discovery of related services, helping build a sustainable MyData ecosystem that people can feel and supporting the safety of data transfers.