[Yang Nak-gyu's Defense Club] ADD Retirees Resort to Tricks and Even Confidential Information Leaks to Get Rehired

Defense Acquisition Program Administration, which supervises the Agency for Defense Development. Photo by Wang Jeonghong, Administrator of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration [Image source=Yonhap News]

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ADD Retirees Evade Public Official Ethics Act to Get Jobs in Defense Companies
130 Retirees Escape Employment Restrictions by Holding 'No-Position' Titles
Suspicion of Unauthorized Leakage of Weapon Development Technology by Retirees Under Investigation

[Asia Economy Reporter Yang Nak-gyu] It has been confirmed that the Agency for Defense Development (ADD) used 'tricks' to enable retirees to get jobs at domestic and foreign defense companies.

On the 25th, the Board of Audit and Inspection pointed out in the 'Agency Operation Audit Report of the Agency for Defense Development' that ADD used a method to exclude retirees from employment restrictions by designating their positions as 'no-position' during the three-year employment restriction period, even if their rank was high.

This cleverly circumvented the current Public Official Ethics Act, which prohibits employment for three years after retirement in institutions closely related to the duties handled in the last five years before retirement, thereby opening the way for retirees to be re-employed. According to the audit results, among 12 ADD headquarters-level retirees from 2014 to 2019, 8 retired after serving more than three years as no-position researchers following stepping down from specific positions, and 5 of them actually found employment in defense companies or related fields.

Furthermore, among 156 ADD retirees at team leader level or above from 2014 to 2019, 130 (83.3%) escaped employment restrictions by holding the title of 'no-position work.' If rank had been applied as the criterion for employment restrictions, 140 retirees (89.7%) would have been subject to employment restriction review. In reality, 45 of them found jobs in related fields, and among these, 37 entered ADD 677 times for work purposes even after retirement.

The Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), the supervisory agency, pointed out this issue and requested ADD to change the employment restriction criteria from position to rank, but ADD opposed, claiming that 'non-position holders are unlikely to engage in business activities after retirement.'

However, after being criticized again in this audit by the Board of Audit and Inspection, ADD finally changed the employment restriction criteria to rank (senior researcher level or above). It was also pointed out that ADD had not been designated as an employment restriction institution until recently, allowing 20 retirees from the Ministry of National Defense and DAPA to be re-employed at ADD in the past two years, 80% (16 people) of whom worked in departments closely related to their previous duties. The Ministry of Personnel Management added ADD to the list of employment restriction institutions following this audit.

There is also suspicion that retirees unauthorizedly leaked weapon development technology. On this day, DAPA announced the audit results and revealed that some retirees transferred a large amount of data to portable storage devices before retirement, and two individuals who left the country were referred to the police for investigation.

DAPA conducted a full investigation of portable storage device usage records for 1,079 ADD retirees and current employees. They left 350,000 and 80,000 access traces respectively on the ADD Data Loss Prevention (DLP) system. Among those who left the country, one person was employed at a university research institute in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), raising suspicions that the leaked confidential data may have served as a 'job guarantee.' Particularly, many retirees suspected of exporting data externally have been avoiding DAPA's investigation, drawing criticism for moral insensitivity. Among current employees, many were also caught copying data without authorization, deleting usage traces of portable storage devices, or using illegal software; 23 of them are under investigation.

However, DAPA has not yet identified exactly what confidential data retirees took before retirement. Although traces of leakage were found in the internal network, the specific documents have not been identified. This raises questions about whether DAPA’s audit of ADD has been properly conducted.

An ADD official said, "One retiree left about 680,000 access traces on the Data Loss Prevention system before retirement," and added, "We have not yet properly identified how many data items were leaked." A DAPA official supervising ADD said, "Suspicions of data leakage within ADD were raised in April, but DAPA was unaware of this until then."

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