Network outage forces gov't services to turn to paper documents

An automated civil document kiosk at a community service center in northeastern Seoul's Dongdaemun District is out of service, Monday, following a fire at the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon. Korea Times photo by Park Ung

In digitally advanced Korea, most administrative tasks can be handled easily online.

But that was not the case on Monday morning, the first workday after a fire that started three days earlier incapacitated most public online administrative services.

On Friday, the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon, which operates the country’s data center and network security system, was hit by a lithium-ion battery fire. It was extinguished after 22 hours, but the blaze shut down 647 administrative systems.

Although systems are gradually being restored — including Gov24, the state portal for most administrative services, and postal banking services — people still faced major disruptions on Monday.

At 9 a.m. when a community service center in northeastern Seoul’s Dongdaemun District opened, residents gathered to handle tasks normally handled online.

Kim, 25, who asked to be identified only by her surname, said the disruption forced her to delay a planned trip out of the city.

“I came to get documents for graduate school applications, which I would normally obtain online,” Kim told The Korea Times. “I was supposed to travel yesterday, but having to come here in person pushed back my schedule.”

Kim Doo-han, 74, also had to cancel his plans to obtain real estate documents that are usually issued online with ease.

“I had other plans this morning, but after seeing news of the government network outage, I came here in person,” he said. “The community center was operating normally when I arrived, but the incident has shaken my trust in government services.”

Minister of the Interior and Safety Yun Ho-jung bows his head in apology during a meeting on the fire response at Government Complex Sejong, Monday. Yonhap

Government workers, too, were left scrambling.

When asked which services were available, an official checked the computer screen and wrote on sticky notes which ones were still unavailable, such as overseas residence registration and resident ID card issuance, adding that some of them could be restored soon.

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters said that more than 70 of the 647 government administrative information systems shut down by the fire had been restored, a recovery rate of about 11 percent as of Monday evening.

“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by the outage,” said Minister of the Interior and Safety Yun Ho-jung, who is also head of the headquarters. “With the workweek starting, demand for services will rise and the inconvenience could worsen, so I urge ministries and local governments to coordinate measures to minimize disruption.”

Although the email network for public officials is back online, the shutdown of the On-nara System, the government’s main work portal, continues to disrupt administrative operations.

Some ministries, including the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, are reportedly handling urgent paperwork manually to process important documents.

The government said it expects it to take about four weeks to relocate and restore 96 systems directly affected by the fire to a data center in Daegu.

Police officers inspect lithium-ion batteries at the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon, Monday, three days after the batteries triggered a fire. Yonhap

Meanwhile, police launched an investigation, reviewing surveillance camera footage and questioning witnesses who were at the scene of the fire.

“The case is being handled by about 20 officers, including the team leaders of Daejeon police’s criminal division,” the police said in a press release. “Three Seoul police forensic experts on lithium batteries have also been deployed to assist the inspection.”

The blaze broke out while 384 lithium-ion battery packs were being moved from the data center to the basement in six stages as a precautionary measure against fire. Police are focusing on possible mishandling of the batteries during the transfer or battery defects.

The servers and batteries were only about 60 centimeters apart, making fire suppression difficult. Firefighters had to use water sparingly to cool the area, fearing that excessive spraying could damage the servers and cause greater losses.

Police are also looking into the age of the batteries, which were found to be a year past warranty after being installed in August 2014 with a 10-year service life.