By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Law enforcement authorities will have to keep the details of every e-mail they obtain through search and seizures for five years, according to the country's renewed communications privacy law.
The changes, which went into effect Tuesday, come at a time when police and prosecutors have been coming under increased scrutiny for their tightened monitoring of online correspondence and Web browsing habits, which critics have been claiming as an attack on civil liberties.
The Supreme Prosecutors' Office says that the new rules represent a guideline to prevent criminal investigations from unreasonably eroding the rights of e-mail account holders.
"Since the communications privacy law had changed so frequently, there was a need for the prosecution to establish a uniform process regarding the investigation of e-mails," a prosecution official said.
According to prosecutors, the records of e-mails, letters and phone calls, searched and monitored with the help of telecommunications companies and mail service providers during criminal investigations, are to be kept for five years.
The rules also cover other types of electronic communications methods such as Internet instant messaging and wireless paging.
In criminal investigations involving the seizing and searching of e-mails, prosecutors will be required to notify the suspect within 30 days after deciding whether to push for indictment or not.
There has been criticism that law enforcement authorities have been abusing their rights by secretly reading online correspondence in criminal investigations. Controversy erupted last year when prosecutors decided to unveil the e-mail records of an MBC television staff member in announcing their investigation results of the network's "PD Notebook" documentary program.
PD Notebook had been facing accusations of deliberately distorting facts in their coverage of the health risks involving U.S. beef, which is once again on Korean shelves after the Lee Myung-bak government lifted the import ban.
The frequent e-mail searches by law enforcement authorities, which also reached politicians, businessmen and even anti-government bloggers aside of journalists, had many computer users here attempting "cyber exile," moving their e-mail accounts to foreign servers through Google and other foreign Internet companies.