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An employee from Korail, a railway company in South Korea, is being heavily criticized for looking into BTS’ RM’s personal information through his train reservation details, reported SBS News on March 1, 2023.
The news channel reported that the Korail employee accessed the information, which included the idol's home address and phone number, among other details, completely unauthorized. While certain departments have the authority to check customer information, the accused was apparently from another department.
Additionally, the employee has reportedly been doing so for the past four years. The person even checked RM’s personal information nearly 18 times.
As a BTS member and leader, RM is a prominent celebrity in South Korea, and fans are aware of the difficulties an idol faces due to obsessive fans or the amount of times they have to change phone numbers. The news naturally took many fans by surprise, who criticized the employee.
Korail employee who accessed BTS’ RM’s personal information says he did it “out of curiosity”
On March 1, SBS News ran a report of a Korail employee having access to the personal information of BTS’ RM since 2019. The employee, henceforth referred to as Mr. A, had been checking the Indigo rapper’s information via the idol's train reservation details. He first gained access to RM’s train ticketing details and then accessed his home address and more.
Mr. A, an IT employee, was caught doing so in the company’s internal audit last month. After the investigation, Korail discovered that he read the BTS leader’s personal information through the reservation system. The company prohibits the collection of customers’ personal details other than for business purposes, reported SBS News.
It was also reported that Mr. A illegally checked BTS RM’ s information out of curiosity. He told SBS News:
“I accessed it simply out of curiosity, and I'll be reflecting on myself.”
The report also claimed that Mr. A told others that he had information on BTS’ RM. He also reportedly gave his friend the BTS leader’s ticketing details for them to book a seat next to him. Mr. A was reportedly fired from his job.
Fans vehemently demand BIGHIT MUSIC take action against the Korail employee
Barely an hour after the news broke, ARMYs took to Twitter to express their frustration at the employee. International fans on Twitter joined others and demanded that Mr. A be put behind bars.
Thousands of fans tagged BIGHIT MUSIC and HYBE’s official Twitter accounts to demand that they take strict action against the Korail employee. They also called out the agencies for allegedly not taking care of their artists’ privacy. Two months ago, a legion of ARMYs called out Hwaeomsa monks for publishing their conversation with BTS’ RM without his permission.
The fact that the Korail employee had access to the BTS leader’s information since 2019 is a dreadful thing to imagine for the ARMY fandom. They went all out in criticizing the railway company, the employee, and BTS’ agency.
Meanwhile, since going solo, RM has released the album Indigo with multiple artist features and has appeared on several Korean variety shows too.
