'N번방 Prevention Law' Includes Naver and Kakao (Comprehensive)

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Chae-eun] Major value-added telecommunications service providers such as Naver and Kakao are expected to be included in the scope of the 'Nth Room Prevention Act,' which mandates the prevention of the distribution of illegal filming materials.

On the 22nd, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) set conditions such as having annual sales of over 1 billion KRW in the previous year for businesses required to implement technical and administrative measures in the revised enforcement decree of the Nth Room Prevention Act. Naver and Kakao each exceeded sales of 6 trillion KRW and 3 trillion KRW respectively last year, thus meeting this criterion.

Even if annual sales do not exceed 1 billion KRW, businesses with an average daily user count of over 100,000 or those that have received correction requests related to illegal filming materials from the Korea Communications Standards Commission within two years will be included. Smaller-scale companies that frequently have illegal filming materials uploaded and have received correction requests are expected to be covered by this standard.

The KCC plans to designate the target businesses and their services by the end of May each year, considering factors such as the possibility of distribution of illegal filming materials, accessibility to the general public, and the purpose and type of service among businesses meeting these conditions.

The information subject to this applies to "services where users post and share publicly available information." This strengthens the obligation to prevent the distribution of illegal filming materials in spaces like online bulletin boards, rather than private information such as KakaoTalk or personal blogs.

Once designated as a target business, they must fulfill obligations related to illegal filming materials. First, they must ① establish a constant reporting function related to the distribution of illegal filming materials, ② restrict search results (such as through banned word functions and related search term limitations) by comparing the names of reported information to identify illegal filming materials, ③ restrict postings if the information matches illegal filming materials reviewed and decided by the Communications Standards Commission by comparing the characteristics of the information, and ④ implement measures to inform users that posting illegal filming materials may result in penalties under relevant laws.

This revised enforcement decree will be implemented after public notice, review by the Ministry of Government Legislation, and other procedures. If technical measures are not taken, a fine of 3% of the average annual sales over the past three years of the service will be imposed. The KCC plans to issue a public notice of the revised enforcement decree at the end of this month and proceed with opinion gathering and legislative procedures. The Nth Room Prevention Act will take effect on December 10 this year, with a one-year grace period for the obligation to apply technical measures.

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