Kwon In-sook: "Budget for Digital Sex Crime Response by 4 Ministries Decreased by 700 Million Won Compared to Last Year"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeon Jin-young] Kwon In-sook, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, pointed out the government's lukewarm response, stating that the related budgets of four ministries responding to digital sex crimes, including the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Police Agency, decreased by about 700 million KRW compared to the previous year.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

On the afternoon of the 24th, during the government questioning session on education, society, and culture held at the National Assembly plenary session, Rep. Kwon said, “The Ministry of Science and ICT, which should hasten to keep up with the rapidly changing digital environment, cut its budget by 1.6 billion KRW, and the National Police Agency reduced its related budget by 140 million KRW compared to the previous year.” She added, “In the third supplementary budget bill, we requested an increase of 340 million KRW for the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, including 40 million KRW for illegal content deletion support and prevention of workforce exhaustion, but even that was not accepted.”

Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun responded to Rep. Kwon’s question, “Isn't the budget ultimately a policy direction and a demonstration of will?” by saying, “Of course, the budget should be increased. Perhaps the supplementary budget was not suitable for an increase due to its nature. I think the necessary increase should be made in next year’s main budget so that proper measures can be taken.”

Rep. Kwon further pointed out, “From April 2017 to December 2019, the Ministry of Science and ICT spent 5.9 billion KRW to develop AI-based video obscenity analysis technology, but it reportedly identified only about 100 cases of illegal videos.”

She explained, “Although it has been used for illegal video deletion support since July, it cannot support the deletion of illegal filming distributed on platforms with overseas servers,” adding, “It is only being used for monitoring illegal videos on webhard platforms.”

Prime Minister Chung responded, “I think the punishment has been embarrassingly inadequate,” and said, “Digital sex crimes require necessary budget input, legal and institutional improvements, and the utmost effort to truly eradicate the problem.”

Regarding the proposal by Rep. Kwon to establish a control tower to unify the ministries responding to digital sex crimes, Prime Minister Chung said, “Once the task force (TF) role ends, if it is necessary to responsibly promote this issue in any form, we will actively consider such measures.”

Rep. Kwon stated, “We must show strong determination so that our children and women no longer suffer anxiety and pain from leaked victim videos,” and added, “There should be no more cases where high-ranking officials provoke public outrage due to sexual misconduct.” She continued, “The government and ruling party must present realistic and responsible measures to prevent sexual crimes by high-ranking officials.”

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