The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family on Thursday was to hold a working-level meeting with related agencies for a crackdown against sex crimes in cyberspace, based on an analysis of 34,628 illegal websites provided by a pangovernmental team.
The meeting is to discuss key elements of the strategy against illegal websites, to be announced in August, the role of each agency and how each organization can cooperate with each other. This includes a crackdown and investigation, victim support, how to cut off illegal profits and measures to prevent creating such websites.
According to the ministry, 6,683 of more than 30,000 illegal websites are accessible via overseas internet protocol addresses available through a virtual private network. A total of 3,832 such websites provide pornographic content.
South Korean law bans creation or distribution of pornographic content, while illegally filmed content — such as through a spycam or that filmed without consent — or child porn can be punished for simply being viewed or possessed. Local distribution of foreign pornographic content is also illegal, even if the content was created in a state where such material is legal.
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety will also participate in the meeting to discuss measures to apply its new model to detect and analyze deepfake content created by artificial intelligence, which is currently in development.
Regular pangovernmental meetings against digital sex crimes have been held since November 2019. The quarterly meetings previously hosted by director-level officials have been upgraded to director general-level since April, while separate director-level meetings have been held every month since.
The Gender Equality Ministry on Monday launched a public campaign to root out digital sex crimes in cooperation with Naver through Aug. 2. The campaign uses banner ads on the nation's largest search portal to encourage ordinary people to contribute suggestions to eradicating such crimes and to report illegal websites.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
