Legislative Notice of Amendment to the Enforcement Decree and Enforcement Rules of the Information Disclosure Act... Bid Information Maintenance and Reduction of Information Disclosure Fees

Ministry of the Interior and Safety Announces Follow-up Measures and System Improvements for Enforcement of Revised Laws

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Ministry of the Interior and Safety will improve and supplement follow-up measures related to the revision of the "Act on Disclosure of Information by Public Institutions," which was amended last year, including the operation standards for information disclosure, maintenance of the list of information subject to prior disclosure related to bidding contracts, and reduction of information disclosure fees.

On the 24th, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced that it has prepared a draft amendment to the Enforcement Decree and Enforcement Rules of the Information Disclosure Act containing these details and will conduct a 40-day legislative notice period until May 4 to gather public opinions.

The amendment establishes operational standards for matters delegated by law to secure the enforceability of the Information Disclosure Act. In line with the purpose of the legal amendment restricting the collection of resident registration numbers from information disclosure applicants, the collection of birth dates will replace resident registration numbers when filing objections, and the resident registration number fields in related forms such as information disclosure requests and objection forms will be replaced with birth dates.

Additionally, regarding internal training conducted by public institutions for their employees, detailed standards have been established for the frequency of training (at least once a year), content, and methods. The scope of information subject to prior disclosure related to contracts, which was previously vaguely and broadly defined, has been specified to enhance transparency in the bidding and contracting process. To this end, information on the criteria for selecting successful bidders according to bidding announcements and the results of related evaluations will be explicitly designated as subject to prior disclosure. For contracts carried out by local governments, in addition to existing information on private contracts, information related to general contracts will also be included in the prior disclosure targets.

When it is necessary to inform the public about information disclosed to specific individuals through information disclosure requests, a basis has been established to disclose such information to the entire public to strengthen public access to information and the right to know. Furthermore, a plan has been devised to reduce the reproduction fees for audio and video files, which were calculated in 2004 based on the CD capacity of 700 megabytes (MB), to better reflect current realities.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety plans to reflect these amendments by reorganizing the information disclosure system and publishing an information disclosure operation guidebook to support public institutions in operating the information disclosure system in accordance with the revised legal standards.

Han Chang-seop, Director of Government Innovation and Organization at the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, stated, “Through this amendment to the Enforcement Decree and Enforcement Rules of the Information Disclosure Act, we expect that the purpose of the revised law will be reflected and that information disclosure by public institutions will be actively carried out.” He added, “We will endeavor to incorporate the opinions collected during the legislative notice period into the amendment draft as much as possible.”

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