The Personal Information Protection Commission (hereinafter the Commission) is promoting the use of original video data for the development of autonomous driving artificial intelligence.

The Personal Information Protection Commission reviewed the regulatory sandbox proposal for the use of original video data applied for by two autonomous robot companies (Woowa Brothers Co., Ltd. and Newbility Co., Ltd.), and as a result, prepared a plan to allow it on the condition that enhanced safety measures for the protection of personal information are implemented and continuous monitoring is conducted through on-site inspections, and pushed forward to enable the use of original video data by presenting it to the Ministry of Science and ICT, which oversees the regulatory sandbox system in the ICT sector, on the 28th.

Previously, when developing autonomous driving technology in fields such as robots or automobiles, pseudonymized video data (such as mosaic processing) was used to prevent the identification of individuals.

However, concerns have been consistently raised that it may be difficult to secure product competitiveness in domestic and international markets due to issues such as a decline in pedestrian recognition rates, and in the 2023 report 'Does Image Anonymization Impact Computer Vision Training?' by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), research results were published showing that using original images can improve average precision by 0.8 to 17.6% compared to pseudonymized images.

Accordingly, since last September, the Personal Information Protection Commission has formed a research team involving relevant experts and industry representatives to establish strengthened safety standards, ensuring a level of safety exceeding that of pseudonymization even when utilizing original video data. Moving forward, for the development of autonomous driving AI and other applications, video data For companies that need to utilize the original, strict safety measures will be imposed through the regulatory sandbox system.

The Personal Information Protection Commission stated, “In the era of the data economy, where data utilization promotes innovation across industries and creates new value, we will establish clear guidelines to ensure that the creative and challenging endeavors of companies in the artificial intelligence sector do not face difficulties due to unclear regulations,” adding, “We plan to strengthen policy support through close communication with relevant ministries and related industries.”