Korea seeks to allow lawful hacking by investigators to delete illegal sexual material
The entrance to the National Police Agency's headquarters in western Seoul is seen in this 2020 photo. Yonhap
Korea plans to review allowing investigators to lawfully hack into websites distributing illegally filmed sexual material in a push to clamp down on digital sex crimes, officials said Thursday.
Under the proposed move, investigators will be able to directly access such websites to take down sexually exploitative material to minimize damage to victims and collect evidence, according to an inter-agency response plan.
The joint plan between the gender equality ministry, the Korea Media and Communications Commission and the National Police Agency comes in response to the growing number of such victims in the country in recent years.
Police investigated 17,716 digital sex crime cases between 2021 and 2025, with the number of victims who received support from authorities reaching 10,637 last year, sharply up from 2,087 in 2019.
Authorities said they would push to revise legislation to allow investigators such powers, noting that similar systems utilizing warrants have already been introduced in Australia and Britain.
The joint plan also outlines introducing legislation to criminalize opening websites with sexually exploitative illegal material and creating a special investigation team to delete and track them down.
It also calls for banning advertisements on such websites and notifying the U.S. Fair Trade Commission of overseas-based websites that fail to take down sexually exploitative material involving Korean victims.
Authorities have identified 34,628 websites containing illegally filmed sexual material, with 6,683 of them still active.
They believe there are 2.15 million videos involving Korean victims on 1,316 active websites that use Korean language.
Since 2021, police have cracked down on 126 illegal websites. They have identified criminal proceeds totaling 30.4 billion won ($21.8 million) from 117 of them.
"The government will concentrate all policy capabilities to disable illegal websites, the source of the spread of illegally filmed material," Gender Equality Minister Won Min-kyong said in a briefing.