No one at the helm of tackling deepfake-related crimes

The ruling and opposition parties said with a unified voice in an emergency inquiry session on focal issues on Wednesday at the National Assembly that there is no task force in place to address the criminal use of deepfake technology. Only Vice Minister Shin Young-yook of Gender Equality & Family attended the meeting with the position of minister left vacant for six months - although the ministry is in charge of deepfake-related sexual crimes.

A plenary meeting of the Gender Equality and Family Committee of the National Assembly was organized to discuss and check on the current status of deepfake-driven sexual crimes, investigations, and countermeasures with all related parties in presence – the Ministry of Gender Equality & Family, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of National Defense, the National Police Agency (NPA) and the Korea Communications Standards Commission.

Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim gave the Gender Equality & Family a failing grade in keeping online sexual crimes at bay, pointing out that the ministry lacks the authority to put practical restrictions and, moreover, cooperation among related agencies such as the KCSC is called for.

DP lawmaker Lee Yeon-hee said, “It was the first deputy general manager of the Office for Government Policy Coordination who presided over a meeting to take pan-governmental measures for deepfake crimes against women last Friday. However, I do not think that he is an expert on this matter.” She argued that the Gender Equality & Family Ministry is supposed to take the lead. In response, Vice Minister Shin answered that the previous meeting was arranged by the office in question because it was considered efficient for it to hold the meeting with a view to designing policies and measures across the government. “We do not think that the ministry is underachieving because the post of minister is currently unoccupied,” explained the vice minister.

The ruling party also agreed that no one stands at the forefront of fighting against this issue. People Power Party lawmaker Suh Bum-soo said, “We have been told many times that the situation is out of control because the post of gender equality minister is left vacant,” adding, “Simply put, it is every man for himself. There is a huge inconsistency in data monitoring among the Advocacy Center for Online Sexual Abuse Victims, the KCSC, and the NPA.”

The ministry, during the session, shared a work report that the number of deepfake porn cases reported to the ministry almost tripled from 144 in 2019 to 423 in 2023 and that as many as 726 cases were reported up until June from the beginning of this year.


권구용 기자 9dragon@donga.com