Dog trainer Kang Hyung-wook, currently embroiled in allegations of employee harassment, revealed on his YouTube channel with his wife that he had previously accessed employees’ internal messenger conversations, raising concerns about privacy infringement.
Kang’s wife said, “There were hateful remarks about our son and fellow employees on the company messenger. While it was wrong to look without permission, we felt it needed to be addressed.”
The couple explained that they discovered an auditing function on the administrator page during the transition from the free to the paid version of the messenger.
While internal messengers are primarily intended for work use, they often become a platform for casual conversations among colleagues.
The revelation that company administrators can monitor these messages has caused a stir among office workers, who had assumed these communications were private, akin to KakaoTalk, which cannot be accessed without a warrant.
Even though policy requires employee consent for such monitoring, the mere possibility of access has raised significant 온라인카지노 concerns about privacy and personal data protection. This is similar to the controversy over using security cameras in Kang’s office.
According to industry sources, Kang’s company, Bodeum Company, uses Naver Works, which includes functions such as messaging, internal communication, calendar, address book and email.
Launched by Naver in 2013, it is used by startups and small to medium-sized enterprises that find it challenging to establish independent work systems.
Other popular tools in Korea include Kakao Work, Teams, Slack and Flow. According to the terms of service, employee consent is required for administrators to access messages.
An official from Naver Works said, “The monitoring function is not intended for surveillance, and the terms specify that companies must obtain prior consent from employees before accessing data.”