'Disappearing Adults' 70,000 Missing Reports Annually... Legislation Proposed for Search and Investigation

No Legal Basis, Difficult to Use Personal Information
Limits to Rapid Searches
3,743 Unfound Cases in 5 Years
National Police Agency Orders Research on 'Effective Search and Investigation Legislation'

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] The police are pushing for legislation to enable search and investigation for adult missing persons cases, which have been a blind spot in missing person incidents.

According to the police on the 16th, the National Police Agency recently commissioned a policy research project on "Legislation for Effective Search and Investigation of Missing Adults." Through this study, the police plan to develop a legislative model reflecting domestic and international legislative cases and current operational procedures related to searching for missing adults, and to derive an effective legislative proposal.

According to the Police Statistics Yearbook, reports of missing adults numbered 65,830 in 2017, 75,592 in 2018, and 75,432 in 2019, reaching around 70,000 cases annually. Notably, from 2015 to 2019, the number of missing adults not found was 3,743, nearly 15 times higher than the 250 missing youths, intellectually disabled persons, and dementia patients during the same period. A police official stated, "Currently, missing adults are registered as 'runaways,' and necessary measures such as verifying criminal relevance and confirming whereabouts or life status are taken," but added, "There is no legal basis for this, making systematic searches and timely responses insufficient."

The current "Act on the Protection and Support of Missing Children, etc." applies to children and adolescents under 18, intellectually disabled persons, and dementia patients, allowing the use of fingerprints, location information, and other data for active search and investigation. However, for adults, there is no separate legal basis, making it difficult to use such personal information and hindering prompt searches. In fact, among adults reported missing in 2017, 1,404 (2.1%) were found deceased due to reasons such as suicide, traffic accidents, or murder.

Efforts to legislate for searching missing adults have been ongoing. During the 20th National Assembly, a bill titled "Act on the Location Discovery and Search of Missing Adults" was proposed but was discarded due to the expiration of the assembly's term. Since then, no related bills have been proposed in the 21st National Assembly. The biggest obstacle to legislation is that adults have the right to self-determination. Concerns have been raised that collecting personal information without the individual's consent could lead to privacy violations and misuse for other purposes, such as searching for specific individuals.

The police plan to use this study to find a legislative model that minimizes concerns about misuse of reports and privacy infringement, and to supplement existing legislative proposals. A police official said, "From the perspective of preventing crimes against missing adults in advance, it is necessary to establish immediate discovery measures in the law and enact legislation for location discovery and search."