 Investigators of Korea Coast Guard show illegal pornographic material they confiscated from five distributors, at its regional office in Busan, Friday. The five were caught illegally copying and distributing pornography, including material involving children and teenagers. Police have also expanded a crackdown on Internet file-sharing providers that distribute illegal pornographic material. / Yonhap |
By Yun Suh-young
Police said Friday they have expanded their crackdown on Internet file-sharing sites that distribute child pornography.
They plan to work together with Interpol’s child pornography image database to identify regions producing the pornographic material.
The National Police Agency (NPA) is also considering participating in an international taskforce that fights against child pornography due to start work in December, and investing and dispatching personnel to the Digital Crime Center Interpol is constructing in Singapore.
The NPA’s Cyber Terror Response Center (NCTR) distributed the list of 250 file-sharing sites to police stations nationwide, as police announced they will investigate all activity, even indirectly related to child pornography.
Acts subject to inspection include sites operating without registering at the Korea Communications Commission; violating measures to delete or block pornography; and soliciting or encouraging the spread of pornography for money.
The NCTR also plans to investigate mobile messenger services, in cooperation with local industries and related organizations to halt the distribution of pornography via mobile messenger services.
“Until now, we’ve only conducted investigations on Internet file-sharing websites that were reported to us. But now we’re going after all file-sharing sites,” said an officer at the NCTR.
“We will root out all illegal activities related to pornography with the help of other related organizations including international ones.”
In June, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security launched a civic monitoring group to monitor the spread of pornography through smartphones as part of 10 measures the government came up with in March to block illicit material from reaching teenagers.
The 400-member group, an integration of 11 civic monitoring groups, was more effective than when the groups monitored separately, but was still limited.
Police also did little to catch “heavy uploaders” who uploaded hundreds to thousands of pornographic files online saying that it was difficult to detect them. However, the recent series of heinous sex crimes prompted inspection as many were committed after the suspects watched pornography.
Meanwhile, the South Regional Headquarters of the Korea Coast Guard said Friday it caught five people for selling pornography involving children.
Currently, the punishment for distributing pornography is light. In 2007, a notorious uploader of pornography, widely known as Kim “Bon-jwa” (king) as he called himself, was only given a prison sentence of 10 months with two years probation.
The Internet Law currently stipulates that people distributing illegal material online are punishable by up to one year in prison and/or a 10 million won fine.
