The Seoul High Court upheld in August 2026 an 18-month prison sentence for a former SK Hynix employee convicted of leaking trade secrets related to CMOS image sensor technology to a Chinese company. The employee, based at SK Hynix’s China office, printed and photographed confidential documents stored on the company’s internal server before disclosing them as part of a job application to an undisclosed Chinese firm. CMOS image sensors, critical components in smartphone and laptop cameras, are protected under South Korea’s industrial technology laws and classified as a matter of national security. Most of the leaked materials were recovered, which led the court to maintain the original 18-month sentence.
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