Kakao Crisis 'Too Late' Parliament... Quick Steps to Prepare Response Legislation

Joo Ho-young, floor leader of the People Power Party, attended the National Assembly's audit countermeasure meeting held on the 11th and received a report from Representative Shin Won-sik before the meeting began. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

[Asia Economy reporters Lee Ji-eun and Naju-seok] In response to the ‘Kakao outage’ incident, both ruling and opposition parties have voiced their condemnation of the severity of the situation in unison and are rushing to devise countermeasures. The ruling party plans to hold a government-party consultation soon, while the opposition intends to propose amendments to the Basic Act on Broadcasting and Communications Development to include value-added telecommunications service providers like Kakao in the category of public telecommunications networks, as well as amendments to the Telecommunications Business Act requiring mandatory reporting of service stability status to the government.

On the 17th, Seong Il-jong, Policy Committee Chair of the People Power Party, stated at the Emergency Measures Committee meeting, "The primary cause of the Kakao outage was a fire in the underground power supply unit, but the more fundamental cause was the lack of a perfect redundancy system," adding, "We will hold a government-party meeting to address the issues and take measures to ensure there is no inconvenience to the public’s daily life."

He emphasized, "Accurate identification of the cause must be the top priority," and raised his voice saying, "To prevent the same incident from happening again in the future, server redundancy must be made mandatory, and thorough safety measures in fire prevention, disaster management, and security must be established for data centers."

Park Hong-geun, floor leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, also said, "Taking this incident as an opportunity, we will swiftly prepare legislative measures so that we are no longer helpless against such digital platform disasters," and added, "Not only the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee but also the Political Affairs Committee, Industry Committee, and Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee will comprehensively inspect the status of emergency backup system construction for online platform companies’ data servers."

Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, is attending the Supreme Council meeting held at the National Assembly on the 17th and is talking with Park Hong-geun, floor leader, during the meeting. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

In the political sphere, discussions on amending related laws are being raised in three directions. First, there is a proposal to revise the Basic Act on Broadcasting and Communications Development, which was discussed in the 20th National Assembly but failed to pass the Legislation and Judiciary Committee and was discarded due to the expiration of the term. The previous amendment included provisions to classify value-added telecommunications service providers like Kakao and Naver as part of the public telecommunications network, thus subjecting them to regulation. Jo Seung-rae, Democratic Party’s ranking member of the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee, said, "The related bill has been drafted," and added, "It will be submitted to the National Assembly soon." If the amendment passes, value-added telecommunications service providers will also be subject to the Basic Plan for Broadcasting and Communications Disaster Management like public telecommunications network operators and will have to comply with national disaster management regulations.

The possibility of mandating value-added telecommunications service providers to report service stabilization status to the government has also increased. The amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act proposed by Democratic Party lawmaker Byun Jae-il in April last year includes provisions requiring value-added telecommunications service providers like Kakao to report matters related to securing service stability to the Minister of Science and ICT every January. Previously, when the Telecommunications Business Act was amended in June 2020, obligations regarding service stability were also imposed on value-added telecommunications service providers, and this amendment established means to manage and supervise them. The relevant standing committees and the government also acknowledge the institutional necessity of this system, stating, "It is a necessary means to check whether value-added telecommunications service providers fulfill their obligations to secure service stability." However, since the bill was proposed by Rep. Byun, there has been no follow-up discussion. This incident is expected to accelerate related discussions.

There is also growing support for strengthening regulations related to compensation for Kakao and others in connection with this incident. Democratic Party lawmaker Park Chan-dae appeared on MBC Radio and said, "In the case of value-added telecommunications service providers like Kakao, when incidents such as temporary suspension of service or temporary reduction in transmission speed occur, only obligations such as cause response, status reporting, consultation reception, and contact information provision are mandated, but there are no compensation regulations," adding, "Having experienced this incident, I think we need to proceed more broadly with consumer protection, including compensation for damages."

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