Vote set for bill to toughen deepfake sex crime penalties

The National Assembly’s Gender Equality and Family Committee holds a committee meeting at the National Assembly in western Seoul on Monday. (Yonhap)

The National Assembly’s Gender Equality and Family Committee approved a bill to strengthen punishment against deepfake sex crimes and victim support Monday, with the aim of passing it during a plenary session on Thursday.

During Monday’s committee meeting, representatives of both the ruling and opposition party approved amendments to the Juvenile Protection Act and the Sexual Violence Prevention and Victims Protection Act.

According to the amendments made to the Juvenile Protection Act, using sexually exploitative material to blackmail or coerce minors will be punishable by law.

Current laws punish such crimes with imprisonment of one or more years in the case of blackmail and three or more years in the case of coercion. According to Monday’s amendment, these sentences are respectively raised to three or more years and five or more years when such crimes target minors.

Additionally, the amendment also allows police officials to conduct urgent undercover investigations without needing prior approval from higher authorities when investigating digital sex crimes using deepfakes.

The revision to the Sexual Violence Prevention and Victims Protection Act specifies that it is the government’s responsibility to delete illegally filmed materials and to help victims proceed with their daily lives. To help with the victims’ recovery, the revision establishes a basis for both central and local governments to operate help centers for digital sex crime victims.

The revised bills are expected to be discussed and voted on by the Legislation and Judiciary Committee sometime this week, aiming to pass during the plenary session scheduled on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the head of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency stated during a press briefing on Monday that the agency is investigating 74 deepfake crime suspects on charges of creating or distributing deepfake pornographic videos on Telegram.

“Currently, 126 cases are under investigation and 74 suspects have been identified,” said Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Commissioner Kim Bong-sik, saying the agency created a special task force late last month to crack down on deepfake porn crimes intensively.

According to Kim, most of the suspects caught so far are teenagers, accounting for up to 51 people out of the 74 suspects. This was followed by those in their 20s with 21 people, and the remaining two in their 30s.

By Lee Jung-joo(lee.jungjoo@heraldcorp.com)