Abolishment of Vehicle License Plate Sealing System After 60 Years... Real-Time Verification of Forgery and Alteration

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Min-young] The license plate sealing system, introduced to prevent tampering and alteration of vehicle license plates, will be abolished after 60 years.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on the 2nd that, following deliberation and resolution by the Land Transport Regulatory Reform Committee, it has decided to pursue regulatory improvement tasks including the abolition of the license plate sealing system.

The vehicle sealing system refers to securing the left screw of the rear license plate with a stainless steel cap stamped with the government emblem to prevent easy removal.

However, with technological advancements enabling real-time detection of stolen and tampered vehicles, and the introduction of reflective film license plates with strong anti-tampering effects, opinions have been raised on the necessity to abolish the sealing system.

Issuing and reissuing seals involves considerable cost and time, and over time, the seals corrode causing rust stains.

The vehicle sealing system is only implemented in South Korea, Japan, and China, and in Japan, seals are not attached to light vehicles and motorcycles, which operate under a reporting system.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport expects that abolishing the sealing system will reduce approximately 3.6 billion KRW in fees borne by the public.

Last year, there were 1,743,000 new license plate seal registrations and 78,000 reissues. The fee per case averages between 1,000 and 3,000 KRW.

The Ministry plans to submit a revision bill to the National Assembly this month to abolish the license plate sealing system under the Automobile Management Act.

Regulatory improvements to revitalize station area development projects will also be pursued.

Currently, local council opinions must be heard once each at the development zone designation stage and the implementation plan approval stage, but going forward, opinions will be heard only once at the implementation plan approval stage to simplify procedures. Additionally, costs for relocating and installing railway facilities as part of station area development projects will be recognized as reinvestment of development gains.

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