Ruling bloc seeks tougher sentences for deepfake sex crimes

The government and the ruling party agreed on adopting longer prison sentences of up to seven years for deepfake sex crimes Thursday, as South Korea grapples with a surge in female victims of such illegal pornography.

The decision made during an emergency meeting at the National Assembly followed President Yoon Suk Yeol’s order, on Tuesday, of a crackdown on the latest reports of digital sex crimes involving the production and circulation of fake sexually explicit images of women and girls online and on the Telegram messaging app.

“It was agreed that (a revision bill) that increases the length of the prison sentence for the act of editing and distributing fake videos under the current Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes from the current five years to seven years is necessary,” People Power Party Rep. Kim Sang-hoon, the ruling party's top policymaker, told reporters after the meeting.

According to Article 14-2 under the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment of Sexual Crimes, a person “who edits, synthesizes, or processes photograph, video, or audio targeting the face, body or voice of a person for the purpose of dissemination, etc, in a form that may cause sexual desire or shame,” against the will of the victim, could currently face up to five years in prison and a maximum of 50 million won ($37,500) fine.

The government is also seeking to establish a special communication channel with Telegram, to bolster its crackdown, according to Kim.

“(The illegal photos and videos) are being widely circulated through Telegram but there appear to be challenges in cross-border cooperation as the servers (of Telegram) are located overseas. The government said that it plans to meet with Telegram officials and secure a communication channel that could help establish a partnership for regulating such illegal content," he said.

Kim also pointed out the increase in minor victims, especially students attending “middle and high schools,” and highlighted the Ministry of Education’s recent decision to add an e-service center for victims to file reports on its official website.

The Korean Teachers & Educational Worker's Union announced Thursday afternoon that a total of 13 students aged from 3 to 19 across the country were confirmed by them as "direct victims" of deepfake sexual pornography. Besides the students, 16 teachers working for schools across the country were confirmed as direct victims.

People Power Party Chair Han Dong-hoon called for the government to swiftly adopt the discussed measures and pointed to the need to lower the age standard for criminal minors involved in deepfake crimes.

Currently, the Juvenile Act allows children between the ages of 10 and 14 not to be held criminally responsible for their actions. They are instead sent to juvenile detention facilities, not prisons, or made to do community service.

The Office for Government Policy Coordination, under Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, told reporters in the afternoon that a pan-governmental task force will be launched by the end of this week to tackle deepfake sex crimes. The task force will hold its first meeting on Friday led by Kim Jong-moon, the first deputy minister of the OGPC.

In line with the government's new goal, prosecutors plan to boost their response towards deepfake sex crimes. Prosecutor General Lee One-seok on Thursday ordered prosecution teams handling digital sex crimes to adopt a tougher stance towards deepfake cases and focus on the protection of the victims.

There are currently prosecutors handling digital sex crimes in 18 prosecutors' offices nationwide, but the number will be increased to 31, according to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office.

According to recent data released by the state-funded Advocacy Center for Online Sexual Abuse Victims, the number of deepfake crime victims in South Korea since its establishment six years ago has topped 2,000, as of Sunday.

This year alone, 781 deepfake crime victims sought help from the ACOSAV from Jan. 1 to Sunday, marking an 11-fold increase compared with 69 victims reported in 2018.

The latest wave of deepfake sex crimes comes after the country's struggle to stamp out "molka," a Korean term meaning spycam and refers to secretly filmed material of a sexual nature. It also follows a 2019 case, widely referred to as “Nth Room," which involved an online sex crime ring that blackmailed over 70 young women, many of them minors, into filming explicitly sexual content to be sold for profit through Telegram chat rooms. Several members of the crime ring were later convicted of various charges including producing illegal pornography and online sex trafficking.