Samsung Electronics' Largest Union Chief Referred to Prosecutors Over Blacklist of 100,000 Employees

The head of Samsung Electronics' largest union and a senior union official are under investigation for allegedly stealing personal information of about 100,000 employees to compile a "union blacklist." The Hwaseong Dongtan Police Station in Gyeonggi Province has referred the union's chairman, Choi Seung-ho, and the unnamed senior official to prosecutors without detention on charges of violating the Personal Information Protection Act.

Choi and the official are accused of using illegally obtained employee data, including union membership status, to create the blacklist. The list was reportedly compiled around March, when the union was preparing for a general strike over performance bonuses. The unnamed official, who had operated the company's internal system, allegedly extracted a file containing the names of more than 100,000 employees and handed it to the union.

On April 10, 2026, Samsung Electronics filed a police complaint against several union officials, accusing them of extracting and disseminating employee information unrelated to their duties. On April 16, the company filed a complaint against the union official involved, alleging illegal collection of vast personal data through the internal system and provision to third parties. Samsung said the official accessed the internal system about 20,000 times in roughly an hour to view employee data.

Police spent nearly five months investigating evidence of Choi's involvement in creating the blacklist before deciding to charge the two. On the same day, police also referred four other Samsung employees to prosecutors for improperly accessing the internal system, violating the Personal Information Protection Act. These four had checked other employees' union membership status out of curiosity but did not organize or disseminate the information.