"Missed Calls Also Considered Stalking"...Will the 'Legal Stalking Scope' Change?

Absent·Multi-profile... Evolving Methods
"Victim Protection 'Stalking Act' Legislative Intent Must Be Upheld"

If repeatedly missed calls that the victim does not answer cause fear, can it be punished as stalking? Recently, as court rulings on 'indirect stalking' such as missed calls have been inconsistent and controversial, the National Assembly has been actively proposing bills to expand the legal scope of stalking.

Currently, there are proposed amendments to the Stalking Punishment Act in the National Assembly to punish indirect stalking. Following lawmakers Lee Tan-hee and Lee Sung-man of the Democratic Party of Korea and Kim Mi-ae of the People Power Party in December last year, lawmaker Ko Min-jung of the Democratic Party recently introduced a related bill on the 3rd of this month. The core of the bill is that to supplement the shortcomings of the Stalking Punishment Act, if the victim feels fear due to the suspect's repeated contacts, it should be regarded as stalking.

The background for the bill stems from recent debates over whether missed calls should be considered stalking behavior. In November last year, the Incheon District Court acquitted a suspect who was prosecuted for making 51 calls over four days to an ex-lover.

The court ruled that even if the suspect repeatedly called, if the other party did not answer and only a missed call notification with ringing sound remained, it was not subject to punishment under the Stalking Punishment Act. The current law defines stalking as acts that deliver words, writings, or sounds against the will of the recipient, but since the victim did not answer the missed calls, the court held that the intent did not reach the victim.

Additionally, the court stated that even if a missed call notification or caller ID is displayed on the phone, it is merely a function of the phone itself and cannot be considered as delivering a signal to the victim.

However, there are rulings that contradict this. On January 16, the Incheon District Court sentenced a suspect to one year in prison for stalking by making 29 calls and sending 33 text messages to the victim. The court reasoned that since the purpose of the Stalking Punishment Act is to protect victims, acts that cause anxiety to the victim should be regulated.

In a similar context, there is ongoing debate about KakaoTalk profile status messages. There is a precedent that using KakaoTalk's Multi-profile feature (which allows setting a profile visible only to specific people) to send a specific message to someone is difficult to consider stalking because it requires the recipient to actively open the profile to see the message.

On the 18th of last month, the Seoul Central District Court sentenced a man in his 20s, Mr. A, to one year and six months in prison for stalking by continuously sending messages and visiting the victim in person.

However, the court did not recognize the charge of sending messages to the victim using KakaoTalk Multi-profile. Unlike regular messages, status messages require the recipient to actively open the profile to read the content, so it is difficult to consider it stalking.

Earlier, in June last year, the Seoul Central District Court also did not recognize the charges against a man in his 30s, Mr. B, who threatened his ex-lover using the Multi-profile feature. Mr. B set a multi-profile visible only to his ex-lover and threatened with phrases such as 'Will you find me? Or not?', 'Now it's my turn. Tag, you're it', and 'Enjoy the time now. I'll make it more fun.' Mr. B was sentenced to one year and six months in prison for other charges including repeatedly contacting the victim and visiting near her home.

Women's groups and others have criticized that the current Stalking Punishment Act has limitations in punishing increasingly diverse stalking behaviors on social networking services (SNS) and other platforms. They argue that even if specific acts are not clearly defined in the law, the legal scope of stalking should be expanded to comprehensively cover all stalking patterns that actually occur and cause victims anxiety and fear.