"'Not Mr. 00' Texts and Calls Stress... Legislation Proposed for Telecom Company Guidance"

Assemblyman Kim Young-sik Proposes Amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act
Includes Obligation for Technical Measures on Phone Number Recycling Issues

[Asia Economy Reporter Minyoung Cha] #In May, Mr. Shin opened a new number by applying for a budget phone (MVNO) service. He was stressed as he kept receiving credit card usage alert texts and bank and shopping mall purchase notifications under the name presumed to be the previous user. There were even unexpected calls late at night from strangers saying, "Hello, hey, you are ○○○, right!" The fact that there was no contact information for the previous user and no way to reach them added to his stress. He also had an embarrassing experience when strangers saved his number and added him as a new friend on KakaoTalk.

To prevent call and text message bombs sent under the previous subscriber's name on a mobile phone number, a revision bill to the Telecommunications Business Act requiring telecom companies to take technical measures has been proposed in the National Assembly. On the 1st, Kim Young-sik, a member of the Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Committee of the National Assembly from the People Power Party, officially proposed a partial amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act with this content.

Currently, telecom companies have a minimum "phone number recycling restriction period" of 28 days. Unless the termination is due to illegal use such as sex crimes, the number can be reassigned after one month has passed. However, telecom companies do not take separate technical measures such as guidance when assigning numbers with usage history, so if the previous user does not immediately change their personal information, the new user is likely to suffer damage.

Since number resources are limited, telecom companies are currently reallocating new numbers. According to Kim Young-sik’s office, as of the end of May, the number of phone numbers held by each mobile carrier is 33.8 million for SK Telecom, 24.56 million for KT, and 15.56 million for LG Uplus, with unused numbers remaining at about 3.89 million, 6.11 million, and 3.52 million respectively. In terms of ratio, this is about 11.5%, 24.9%, and 22.6%. It is also expected that the problem will worsen when the domestic smartphone eSIM service is commercialized next month, making number portability easier.

The National Assembly is working with telecom companies to devise technical measures to solve this problem. For example, there is discussion about creating a database (DB) of canceled numbers and sharing it in advance with internet service providers and financial institutions. There are also talks with telecom companies about automatically notifying the number portability status for about one month when calling a newly activated number.

A representative from Kim’s office explained, "Since there is no explicit regulation in the current law regarding technical measures by telecommunications operators and most new subscribers are young students, there are calls for more detailed measures when assigning numbers with usage history to new users."

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