Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Teachers' portrait rights, copyright infringed on under online education
A teacher gives a remote class at an elementary school in Seoul, in this Jan. 28 photo. Yonhap
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
Over a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers' portrait and intellectual property rights are reported to have been infringed upon since the commencement of online classes.
The unexpected fallout from the coronavirus was raised during a virtual joint forum, Saturday, by the Korean Federation of Teachers' Associations (KFTA) and the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS).
The forum took place following a series of incidents, in which students captured images of teachers, while taking online classes, and misused them by placing them on deep-fake photos and videos that became widespread on the internet.
The organizers said the forum was arranged to show the magnitude of the portrait and personal information infringement that have occurred against teachers and to explore countermeasures.
“It is difficult for teachers to clearly figure out whether their portrait rights or their copyright of educational content have been infringed upon. Besides, it is also difficult to decide whether they should hold students accountable for the misconduct,” said Kim Beop-yeon, a researcher at Korea University School of Cybersecurity during the forum.
Kim emphasized that a revision to relevant laws dealing with infringement of portrait rights and copyright taking place during classes was necessary as remote learning has become a norm amid the prolonged pandemic.
“Human and material resources are necessary to educate students about privacy protection,” Kim added.