Is Korea Turning Into Internet Police State?

By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter

The year is shaping up to be a dismal one for Internet companies, doubly battered by the economic blues and a heavy-handed government looking at more ways to monitor the Web and avoid a second beef crisis.

And now, with ruling party lawmakers looking to rewrite communication privacy law and allow authorities further power to observe and track Web browsing habits, frustrated Internet companies are finally showing some collective backbone against the growing regulatory pressure.

K-Internet, an industry lobby of 150 Internet companies, including NHN, the operator of Naver (www.naver.com), Daum (www.daum.net), Google Korea (www.google.co.kr) and Yahoo! Korea (www.yahoo.co.kr), announced a statement denouncing the controversial bill backed by the Grand National Party (GNP).

According to the draft, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the country's spy agency, gets expanded surveillance power that allows real-time interception of mobile phone and Internet communication, compared to current law that limits monitoring to fixed-line telephone calls.

All communication operators, including telephony carriers and Internet companies, will be required to operate surveillance equipment and save call recordings and log-on records of their users.

The bill also enables law enforcement authorities to collect and monitor location-based information, or Global Positioning System (GPS) records, of civilians. Considering that GPS capabilities are increasingly included in the latest mobile phones and portable Internet devices, a fast-growing number of people would be susceptible to investigators tracking their real-time movements

The GNP, which claims that strengthened law is needed to combat high-tech crimes and potential terrorist activities, plans to pass the bill through the National Assembly this month.

Internet companies claim that the suggested provisions could threaten to curtail Internet freedom and are likely to negatively affect their business by bumping up costs and curbing Web activity.

Obviously, a world where the government enjoys extensive freedom to peek into e-mail, chats, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) calls and any other Web-based communication doesn't exactly inspire confidence for a vibrant Internet culture.

``The content of the bill suggested by Rep. Lee Sung-han seems to be focused excessively on improving the `efficiency' of investigations and less on protecting communication freedoms and limiting threats to privacy, posing a serious threat to the fundamental rights of citizens, limiting the business of communications operators and needlessly increasing social costs,'' said the K-Internet statement.

`No Fun in Joking About China Anymore'

Should the GNP bill survive the National Assembly, the adjusted privacy law will become the latest measure by the Lee Myung-bak government to impose rules on Internet users.

Starting this month, the government is forcing real-name verifications on all Web sites with at least 100,000 users per day.

And last week, the National Assembly passed an anti-file-sharing provision that allows regulators to shutdown Web sites after their third warning over copyright infringement and cut off Internet access of users accused of sharing copyrighted files with or without complaints of copyright holders.

Due to the loose definition of copyrighted content, which not only includes movies and television shows but also news articles and even blog posts, Internet companies are concerned that the bulked-up copyright law could be abused for political reasons.

``I guess the government's talk about being `business-friendly' doesn't include Internet companies,'' said an employee from a major Internet company who didn't want to be named.

``And when they say that we should keep all log-on records and fully monitor the copyright violations for the millions of files that come up everyday, you have to wonder whether they know what they're talking about. There is no possible way we can afford the cost.''

Repeatedly kicked in the teeth by bloggers, first for the controversial decision to resume U.S. beef imports and then for ineptitude in economic policies, beleaguered government officials have been attempting to keep a closer watch on Internet users. As a result, Korea has now become one of the first democracies to aggressively use the law to hold Internet users and Web sites to account.

The watershed moment came in January when police arrested Park Dae-sung, a blogger known more widely as ``Minerva'' and a frequent critic of the government's economic polices, on charges of ``deliberately'' undermining public interest by distributing fraudulent information.

``Maybe the Lee Myung-bak government is trying to lay the foundation for reunification, as Seoul and Pyongyang have never been so close politically and economically,'' another deadpan industry insider said.

``There is no fun in joking about Pakistan and China anymore, when our own government seems to have a similar approach to Internet users.''

thkim@koreatimes.co.kr