Human Rights Commission Recommends Correction for Unauthorized Filming and Transmission in Disability Residential Facilities

National Human Rights Commission / Photo by Yonhap News

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Dong-hoon] The National Human Rights Commission has judged the actions of workers at a residential facility for people with severe disabilities, who filmed videos without the consent of intellectually disabled individuals and sent them to third parties without permission, as human rights violations.

On the 20th, the Human Rights Commission announced this and recommended that the representative of the relevant residential facility for people with disabilities take cautionary measures against those involved and conduct human rights education for all employees.

The complainant filed a petition with the Human Rights Commission stating, "In the situation where a life rehabilitation teacher at Facility A for people with severe disabilities in Gyeonggi-do was accused of assaulting facility users, the teacher filmed conversations without the consent of intellectually disabled individuals to secure evidence favorable to themselves and sent the content to another life rehabilitation teacher."

According to the Human Rights Commission's investigation, at that time, life rehabilitation teacher Woo Mo at Facility A presumed that user Yang Mo gave unfavorable testimony against him to investigative authorities because of the facility director, and filmed Yang Mo making related statements. Woo Mo had Yang Mo say, "The reason I testified to the investigative authorities that Woo Mo assaulted user Lee Mo was because the facility director ordered it," and recorded this. Afterwards, he sent the video to his colleague life rehabilitation teacher Kim Mo and to the investigative authorities.

The video also captured user Park Mo, who was sitting sideways with their lower garments removed, and at the time of filming, Woo Mo was completely unaware of this. Notably, all victims were women with severe intellectual disabilities, and Yang Mo did not know how the recorded video would be used.

The Human Rights Commission stated, "According to Article 22 of the Act on the Prohibition of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities and Remedies for Rights Violations, personal information of persons with disabilities must be collected only with their consent, and the procedures must comply with related laws such as the Personal Information Protection Act," adding, "The respondents did not comply with these regulations at all and filmed and transmitted videos of intellectually disabled individuals without permission, thereby violating the victims' rights to personality, privacy, and personal information self-determination."

Furthermore, the Human Rights Commission expressed, "We recognize the seriousness of the frequent unauthorized filming and transmission targeting intellectually disabled individuals at residential facilities for people with disabilities and will take necessary measures such as corrective recommendations if similar petitions are received in the future."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.