Measures Introduced to Prevent Recurrence of 'Kakao Outage'

Ministry of Science and ICT Announces Measures to Strengthen Digital Service Stability

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The scope of management obligations for disaster prevention, training, response, and recovery will be expanded to include major digital service providers. This now includes value-added telecommunications service providers (with over 10 million users or a traffic share of 2% or more) and data center operators (with sales of 10 billion KRW or more and a floor area of 22,500㎡ or more, or power capacity of 40MW or more). Previously, only fixed-line telecommunications operators were subject to management. Kakao and Naver will also be added to this list.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced the "Digital Service Stability Enhancement Plan" on the 30th, which contains these measures. This is a follow-up action to prevent recurrence of incidents such as the SK C&C Pangyo data center fire and service outages at Kakao and Naver last year. Even if value-added telecommunications service providers or data center operators do not meet the criteria, operators that have recently experienced large-scale service disruptions may be temporarily designated as management targets through deliberation by the Telecommunications Disaster Management Deliberation Committee.

According to data recently disclosed by Jeong Pil-mo, a member of the National Assembly’s Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Committee from the Democratic Party, during the KakaoTalk outage incident in October last year, Kakao received 87,195 user damage reports. Additionally, 36 user complaints were transferred to Kakao, but it was analyzed that Kakao did not report the complaint handling results back to the Korea Communications Commission. The Ministry of Science and ICT’s plan is aimed at preventing further damage like this.

The Ministry plans to integrate the various digital service stability-related systems scattered across multiple laws and prepare a draft bill for the "Digital Service Safety Act" (tentative name). It will also operate a "Digital Crisis Management Headquarters" on a permanent basis and form a "Digital Safety Council" to strengthen response capabilities. Minister Lee Jong-ho of the Ministry of Science and ICT stated, "We will thoroughly implement this plan to ensure continuous digital services for the public," adding, "We will solidify a permanent digital crisis management system and strive to build a digital-based society trusted by all citizens."