Human Rights Commission: "Efforts Needed to Indicate 'Pre-Discharge Service Number' Instead of Current Service Number Revealing Reappointment Status"

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-ju] On the 5th, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea expressed the opinion that the Ministry of National Defense should establish practical measures to indicate the current military service number format, which reveals reappointment status, as the "pre-discharge military service number."

According to the Human Rights Commission, an officer currently serving filed a petition earlier this year stating that "indicating the military service number to show that a soldier has been reappointed discriminates against reappointed personnel without reasonable grounds and infringes on the right to personal information self-determination by disclosing reappointment status to everyone regardless of the individual's consent."

In response, the Ministry of National Defense revised related regulations so that the military service number of reappointed soldiers, which was previously indicated as "pre-discharge military service number + R + reappointment year," would now only show the pre-discharge military service number. The Ministry replied to the Human Rights Commission that "an error occurred in the military's internal computer system, and improvement work has begun; once this project is completed, the improved form of military service number usage will be possible." Considering that the Ministry recognizes the problem and is promoting institutional improvements, the Human Rights Commission dismissed the petition, determining that no separate remedial measures were necessary.

However, the Human Rights Commission judged that a complete resolution is only possible after the Ministry's computer system improvement work is completed in June 2024, and considering that until then the existing military service number format for reappointed personnel is still used in military administrative practice, measures such as using the improved form of reappointed personnel's military service number in internal military documents or posts should be taken even before the system improvement work is completed.

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