KCC will spend $355 million to crack down on 'digital sex crime'

The Korea Communications Commission has increased its budget to strengthen the monitoring of sexually explicit livestreams. The funds will be used to better monitor real-time content on online platforms.

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) at the government complex in central Seoul [YONHAP]

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) increased its annual budget dedicated to strengthening the monitoring of sexually explicit livestreams by 47 percent on year to 4.66 billion won ($354.8 million).

The state broadcasting watchdog will use the extra funds to improve its proof-collecting system used to prevent the distribution of explicit materials and to reinforce the personnel dedicated to its monitoring, especially that of real-time content streamed to online and metaverse platforms.

Explicit materials, as defined under the Telecommunications Business Act, refers to illegally filmed videos as well as copies or alterations of such content, as well as sexually explicit videos including underage minors.

“Although such illegal videos may be livestreamed and cannot be viewed again, the need to come up with a more tightly knit monitoring system is critical, as they can circulate quickly as more individuals have easier access online, such as through their personal internet devices,” the KCC said. “Therefore, it’s become more important that there are forces that can instantly monitor, delete and block access to such content.”

Part of the budget will also go to improving operation analysis technology for new platform operators. The technology, developed by the government in 2020, analyzes the coded characteristics of the information that a user intends to post, and, if it is deemed illegal according to the KCC's database, restricts its publication.

“About 95 percent of the coded information that has been filtered out using this technology turned out to contain illegal content,” a KCC spokesperson told the Korea JoongAng Daily. “It does not go against the Personal Information Protection Act, because even the platform operators themselves do not know what kind of content it is — just that it goes against the database that KCC has.”

“A digital sex crime is a serious offense that inflicts irreparable damage on victims,” said KCC Chairman Kim Hong-il in a statement. “Therefore, more efforts are to be made to swiftly block such content to minimize the damage. We hope that increased budget will allow for the establishment of a more comprehensive response system to address explicit content broadcast in real time online.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]