Police on 'Gapho Emergency' Duty on Local Election Day... Over 70,000 Experienced Officers Deployed

Improvement of the Active Prostitution Advertisement Blocking System

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] On the 30th, the police announced that they will deploy 70,502 officers to 29,712 voting and counting locations nationwide on the 1st of next month, when the 8th nationwide simultaneous local elections and by-elections for the National Assembly will be held, to conduct security and safety activities.

The local elections and National Assembly by-elections will be conducted from 6:00 AM to 7:30 PM on the day at 14,465 locations nationwide. Vote counting will take place at 255 locations nationwide from the transportation of ballot boxes until the completion of counting. Considering the previous local elections, the police expect the counting to take about 9 hours and 30 minutes. The average counting time for past local elections is 9 hours and 37 minutes, and the 7th local elections in 2018 took 9 hours and 23 minutes.

The police plan to respond by issuing the highest emergency security level, "Gapho Emergency," from the start of voting until the completion of counting. For polling station security, an emergency communication system between polling stations and police stations will be established, with 112-linked patrols conducted every hour and rapid response teams on standby to respond to any unexpected situations. Two armed police officers per route will support the transportation of ballot boxes, jointly escorting with election commission staff. Escort services will be provided in traffic-vulnerable areas. Security at counting centers will be commanded on-site by the chief of the local police station. The police will manage personnel deployment and on-site situations, arranging officers inside and outside the fences of the counting centers in a three-line concept.

Meanwhile, the police also announced that starting from the day of the local elections, they will improve the prostitution advertisement blocking system, which was developed and operated since September 2018 to block calls to prostitution advertisement phone numbers. This is to address limitations such as the exposure of registered phone numbers (phones used for prostitution business).

The police plan to change the registered phone numbers used for prostitution business to outgoing-only numbers to reduce the risk of exposing prostitution agents during on-site crackdowns. The police explained that the currently exposed prostitution agent business mobile phone numbers will be replaced sequentially. The National Police Agency will also register outgoing-only phone numbers in bulk and change them periodically.

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