▲ Lee Jeong-ryeol (L), vice chairperson of the Personal Information Protection Commission, speaks during the watchdog's plenary session at its office in central Seoul on Feb. 11, 2026. (Yonhap)

luxury brands-data leak

S. Korean units of Louis Vuitton, Dior, Tiffany fined 36 bln won over customer data leaks

SEOUL, Feb. 12 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's privacy watchdog said Thursday it has fined the Korean units of luxury brands Louis Vuitton, Dior and Tiffany a combined 36 billion won (US$24.9 million) over leaks of customer information.

The Personal Information Protection Commission made the decision in a plenary meeting the previous day, imposing on Louis Vuitton Korea a fine of 21.4 billion won -- the heaviest among the three companies -- over a data breach of about 3.6 million customers.

The watchdog said an outside actor stole the user information over three instances by hacking into an employee device with a malicious code. It noted the company had poor security practices, such as not enforcing proper safety protocols for remote logins.

Meanwhile, the regulator fined Christian Dior Couture Korea and Tiffany Korea 12.2 billion won and 2.4 billion won, respectively, for data breaches after employees were tricked into granting internal system access to malicious actors.

Dior suffered a data breach of about 1.95 million users and was unaware of the incident for three months, while the leak at Tiffany involved the personal information of around 4,600 users, according to the watchdog.

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