Government to make all-out efforts to eradicate deepfake sex crimes

On Friday, August 30th, at 3:00 PM, the government held a “Government-wide Countermeasure Meeting on Responding to Deepfake Sexual Crimes” at the Government Complex Seoul, chaired by First Vice Minister of Government Policy Coordination (Kim Jong-moon) along with relevant ministries.

This meeting was organized as a kickoff meeting for systematic discussions and government-wide capacity building to respond to crimes exploiting deepfakes.

The meeting reviewed the progress each ministry was making in each field, including investigation, crackdown, victim support, preventive education, and platform management enhancement, and agreed to swiftly and thoroughly implement each ministry’s ongoing reporting, education, and investigation.

The police began intensive crackdowns on August 28, and the prosecution and police decided to strengthen their investigative personnel and organization in the future to respond strictly to deepfake sex crimes. In addition, they plan to review measures to expand undercover investigations, establish new regulations to punish possession, purchase, and viewing of fake videos, and promote legal revisions to raise the standards for punishment for the production and distribution of deepfakes.

In order to make it easier for victims to report and receive support quickly, we decided to integrate reporting methods by department and review measures to strengthen victim support, including deleting false videos, psychological counseling, and legal and medical support.

In particular, considering the situation in which deepfake sexual crimes are rapidly spreading among teenagers and schools, the Ministry of Education plans to establish specific response measures in the field of education, such as identifying the actual state of damage in schools and strengthening preventive education so that students can recognize that deepfake videos are serious crimes.

In order to prevent the production, distribution, and spread of deepfake videos online and to ensure the swift deletion of illegal videos, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Communications Commission have decided to promote further commercialization of deepfake detection technology, strengthen the responsibility and management of information and communications service providers, and pursue cooperation measures.

The government plans to establish comprehensive government-wide measures by October by gathering additional opinions from experts and the private sector to devise effective measures. In addition, the government plans to cooperate with the National Assembly to swiftly enact and revise related bills, such as the ▵ enactment of the Framework Act on AI and the amendment to the Information and Communications Network Act that make it mandatory to display generative AI watermarks, ▵ the amendment to the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Violence that establishes a new crime of possession of false video materials and increases the statutory sentence for production and distribution from 5 years to 7 years, and ▵ the amendment to the Act on the Prevention of Sexual Violence to establish the basis for support for the deletion of victims’ personal information when it is distributed.

In addition, we plan to review and quickly promote additional necessary legislation, such as the “Special Act on the Punishment of Sexual Violence” to expand the scope of undercover investigations.

Editor. Hong Se-yeong