Park24 to pay ¥3,000 to Times Car users hit by data breach

Park24 has announced plans to provide a consolation payment of ¥3,000 in cash or gift cards to Times Car vehicle-sharing service users affected by a recent data breach.

The company has confirmed that about 6.62 million user accounts were compromised. Of those accounts, eligible for the payment will be about 1.46 million accounts from which images of identification documents, including driver’s licenses, were externally transferred.

Park24 said Friday that it will respond appropriately on a case-by-case basis if actual damage occurs. It added that the affected images were not immediately viewable because they were encrypted.

The total cost of the consolation payment is expected to be some ¥4.4 billion. The company plans to book an extraordinary loss of ¥5.5 billion for the year ending this month, including other expenses related to the data breach.

On Friday, it was also learned that Makino Law Office plans to organize affected users and file a damages lawsuit against the Times Car service operator and others.

Yuki Makino of the law office said that the payment amount is “too low” given concerns over identity theft and the burden on affected users of dealing with potential damage.

According to Makino, more than 90,000 people have registered online to participate in the planned lawsuit.