South Korea's Broadcasting Media Communications Commission said on April 20 it held its third plenary meeting of 2026 and gave final approval to 75 operators after reviewing whether they were suitable to generate and process Connecting Information (CI).

Those approved include identity verification agencies such as NICE Information Service and Naver, as well as mobile electronic notification and financial MyData businesses.

Connecting Information (CI) is electronic personal identification information. It is an encrypted value of a resident registration number used to identify a specific individual online. It cannot be converted back into a resident registration number.

The approval review covered 75 operators, including identity verification agencies, mobile electronic notification and financial MyData businesses that had received temporary permits under a regulatory sandbox, as well as newly applying operators. The review was conducted for about a month from June last year.

Review items covered 6 detailed items in 3 areas: the adequacy of CI generation and processing procedures, plans to secure the safety of CI generation and processing, and measures to protect user rights. The commission said it focused on checking overall safety in generation and processing and whether processing stayed within the scope of purpose, given that CI is unique identifying information generated based on resident registration numbers.

All 75 operators were judged suitable and given final approval. One operator that had been in business did not apply for approval due to an end to operations and other reasons.

Chairman Kim Jong-cheol (김종철) said the commission would continue to manage and supervise whether the operators handle CI safely even after approval. He said the commission plans to strengthen protection systems so valuable user information is not misused, by confirming compliance with relevant laws and regulations through future regular inspections.