[2020 National Audit] Average 36% Registration Rate for 'Fingerprint Pre-Registration System' to Find Missing Persons... "Still Low"

Kim Hyung-dong, Member of the People Power Party. [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] It has been 8 years since the police introduced the 'Fingerprint Pre-registration System' to quickly find missing children and others, but concerns have been raised that the registration rate remains low.

According to data submitted by the National Police Agency to Kim Hyung-dong, a member of the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee from the People Power Party, as of the end of August this year, the registration rate of fingerprint registration subjects such as children, disabled persons, and dementia patients was only about 36% on average.

By category, the registration rate was 55% for children under 18, 27.4% for disabled persons (intellectual, autistic, mental), and 25.8% for dementia patients.

By region, Gyeongbuk (62.3%) and Daegu (61.5%) exceeded 60%, while Jeju (43.5%) and northern Gyeonggi (48.2%) remained in the 40% range, showing significant regional disparities. In Sejong, where the local police agency was opened in June last year, the rate remained at 11.7%.

Introduced in 2012, the fingerprint pre-registration system is analyzed to have played a key role in finding missing children. In fact, the average time to find children without fingerprint registration was 81 hours, compared to only 1 hour for children with fingerprint registration.

In response, the police tried to increase the pre-registration rate through on-site visit registration projects and operation of the Mobile Safe Dream app, but the results were poor, according to Rep. Kim's criticism.

Rep. Kim said, "Although the majority of the public sympathizes with fingerprint pre-registration, they do not actually register due to concerns about personal information leakage," adding, "Measures to protect personal information and improve fingerprint registration should be prepared to quickly find missing persons and prevent unnecessary administrative waste."