[Exclusive] Democratic Party to Propose Party-Line Bills on Data Agency and Data Exchange Next Month

Consensus reached through last week's private discussion with related government ministries
Mirae Tonghap Party also preparing to propose Data Cheong bill

Kwang-jae Lee, Chief Election Commissioner of the Democratic Party in Gangwon Province / Wonju = Photo by Dong-joo Yoon doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Cheol-eung] The Democratic Party of Korea is pushing for the establishment of a government agency, the Data Agency, which will oversee data information collection and processing, as well as the creation of a data exchange. Last week, they reached a consensus with related government ministries through discussions and plan to propose a bill early next month. The United Future Party is also preparing a bill to establish a Data Agency, making it likely to materialize within this year.

On the 11th, Lee Kwang-jae, head of the Post-Corona Headquarters of the Democratic Party's COVID-19 National Crisis Overcoming Committee, said in a phone interview with Asia Economy, "Last week, at the National Crisis Overcoming Committee level, we held a closed data-related discussion with officials from the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and other related ministries," adding, "We reached a consensus on the need for a control tower to comprehensively manage data, and we will propose a party bill early next month as part of the post-corona measures."

Data is considered the "rice of the 4th Industrial Revolution," representing the core of future growth industries. Since last year, when Lee was the director of the private future strategy think tank 'Yeosijae,' he has advocated for the establishment of the Data Agency and has been working to raise awareness within the Democratic Party. The plan includes revitalizing the data industry and sharing wealth generated from data with general producers. Lee said, "There needs to be a link between personal information protection and data income," explaining, "It is a concept of providing income to people participating in data production. Since manpower is required for data production, processing, and security, it can also create significant job opportunities."

The financial data exchange opened last month through the Financial Security Institute. The Democratic Party aims to go further by creating data exchanges in various fields such as healthcare, industry, transportation, and construction. Through this, they plan to discover and accumulate data that helps public safety and health, and in simple terms, accumulate 'money-making' data to provide 'participation income' to general citizens as producers. Democratic Party lawmaker So Byung-hoon plans to propose a basic income bill funded by data usage fees within this month. Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung also started a 'data dividend' policy in February, returning profits generated from local currency data transactions to local currency users.

The United Future Party is also advocating for the establishment of a Data Agency, with emergency committee chairman Kim Jong-in identifying data as a future core growth industry. On the 4th, Chairman Kim proposed revising the government organization act, stating, "We are entering an era where data is money." On the same day, the United Future Party's Science, Broadcasting and Communications Committee and the Yeouido Research Institute held an expert meeting to accelerate efforts to establish the Data Agency.

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