On March 1, SBS 8 News reported that Korail employee ‘A’ had been accessing BTS member RM’s personal information unauthorized by checking his ticket information and details listed on the Korail app, a serious invasion of privacy. The employee accessed RM’s information 18 times since 2019, including his phone number and address.

Korail is South Korea’s biggest railroad company which owns KTX, high-speed trains that allow travel across every part of the country. KTX trains are widely used by most Korean people, including RM, when moving between cities. 

“I ride the KTX often when I travel to my grandparents’ house with my family,” Jennie Koh (11), K-pop fan, said. “I never expected an employee of such a large company like Korail to be involved in a scandal like this, so I’m very shocked and unsettled.”

Naturally, fans were angered that RM was unable to even travel without someone infringing on his rights to privacy. Employee “A” stated that they acted “out of curiosity,” but they have also admitted to giving their friend information about RM’s seat so that they could sit near him. They have also admitted to going to a train station after checking RM’s destination on his ticket in hopes of seeing him there. 

RM himself shared a screenshot of an article on his Instagram story, reacting with symbols that represent a smiling face and sweat, expressing his mixed feelings from the news. The employee has been suspended from the company since, but fans are petitioning for a stronger punishment. 

They are currently urging BTS’s company HYBE to take legal action against the employee, but it is unclear how severe the consequences will be. 

“I don’t know how the employee managed to get away with their actions for over three years,” Carys Ayala (11), a fan of BTS, said. “I think they need to be punished harshly, at least by being fired from the company, and HYBE should sue them to make sure they know the severity of their wrongdoing. It doesn’t make sense that they did it out of curiosity.”