Overview
- A joint plan announced Thursday by the Gender Ministry, the Korea Media and Communications Commission and the National Police Agency calls for legal reviews to allow investigators, under court warrant, to access overseas-hosted websites to collect evidence and delete illegal sexual material.
- The proposal also includes creating a special investigation team to locate and remove content, drafting laws to criminalize running sites dedicated to such material, and banning ads that help finance the operations of those sites.
- Authorities say they have identified 34,628 websites with illegally filmed sexual material, with 6,683 still active, and estimate about 2.15 million videos involving Korean victims on 1,316 Korean-language sites; victim support cases rose to 10,637 in 2025 from 2,087 in 2019.
- The government plans expanded international cooperation with U.S. agencies including the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission and with Interpol because officials say roughly 99 percent of offending sites are hosted overseas and about 79 percent are in the United States.
- Domestic steps in the plan would tighten identity checks on financial accounts, make it easier to freeze suspected operator accounts, and pursue criminal and civil measures against platforms and operators; these proposals are under review and have not been enacted.