hankyoreh

Park Mi-suk, whose son Jang Deok-jun died while working at a Coupang logistics center in 2020, calls for a thorough investigation into Coupang Inc. CEO Kim Bom-suk during a press conference outside the Seodaemun Police Station in Seoul on Dec. 23, 2025. (Kim Young-won/Hankyoreh)

South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang rifled through employees’ health exam records in an effort to refute the claim that overwork caused the October 2020 death of Jang Deok-jun, an individual who worked night shifts at a Coupang logistics center. That move likely violated several laws, including the Personal Information Protection Act.
 
Internal emails dated Nov. 9-11, 2020, obtained by the Hankyoreh on Wednesday, show a conversation between multiple Coupang executives, including Lee Young-mok, who was head of PR at the time and now serves as vice president; and Eom Sung-hwan, the CEO of Coupang Fulfillment Services (CFS) at the time, who now serves as the Coupang subsidiary’s HR chief. 

“The key point of contention in the Daegu case raised by the emergency committee representing courier workers and the bereaved family is that Jang lost 15 kg during his employment,” Lee wrote to Eom. 
 
“Is there a way to verify the yearly weight changes experienced by contract workers at the logistics center who underwent physical examinations?” Lee then asked. 
 
Eom forwarded this email to the head of health and safety at CFS, asking if they could “try to verify.” 

At the time, the deceased worker’s family was claiming that Jang’s weight dropped from 75 kg to 60 kg after working excessive hours as a non-regular worker on night shifts for 16 months.
 
The head of health and safety at CFS ordered a health and safety officer at the company’s logistics center in Daegu, where Jang died, to “review the physical exam data for contracted and regular employees who worked as ‘waters’ and ‘pickers’ [the role Jang performed], then compile and send over the data recording weight change.”
 
The next day, the Daegu safety and health officer later sent an email to his supervisor with the following: 

“Here are changes in weight and obesity level documented by the records from the regular off-site health screenings in October 2019 and August 2020. Currently, there are about 40 regular employees working the afternoon and late-night shifts on the outbound side [working on the seventh floor of the Daegu logistics center]. Except for two individuals, most have gained weight.”
 
Under the Personal Information Protection Act, information pertaining to physical health is classified as “sensitive information.” Such information should be treated with caution and can only be used with the consent of the individual in question or in situations stipulated by law. The misuse of such data can be considered a violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, as the act prohibits the use of health examination results for any purpose other than protecting and maintaining the health of employees.
 
“The Occupational Safety and Health Act stipulates that employers are provided with the results of health examinations of their workers to ensure support for workers who show abnormalities. Using those results to argue that one worker’s illness was not caused by labor constitutes misuse and violates that very law,” commented certified public labor attorney Kwon Dong-hee, of Work and Human Law Office. 
 
There are also indications that Coupang executives were aware of the illegality of this behavior. An email sent by Lee to the Daegu logistics center’s health and safety officer on Nov. 11, 2020, reads: “Following a review by the legal department regarding access to materials, the immediate disposal of documents related to physical examinations is advised.”
 
However, Coupang continued to abuse private health check-up data. When addressing the lawsuit for damages filed against it, CFS submitted data analyzing the weight change of 80 regular and non-regular workers from 2021 to 2023 to the court, to address the bereaved family’s claim that Jang suffered from severe weight loss during his employment.
 
At the time, CFS used the physical examination results of Jang’s colleagues, along with his Coupang and food delivery order history, to argue that Jang’s death was caused by “excessive dieting.”
 
When reached for comment on the allegations surrounding the unauthorized use of physical checkup data, CFS responded, “We are cooperating faithfully with relevant investigators.” 

CFS has yet to reveal whether it obtained employee consent when submitting the examination results to the court.

By Park Tae-woo, staff reporter

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