Ministry of Education Reports 617 Victims of 'School Deepfake'... Tripled in Two Weeks

350 Cases Referred for Investigation · 184 Cases Linked to Deletion

This year, 617 students and faculty members have been identified as victims of deepfake false synthesis content. This is approximately 3.1 times more than the 196 victims reported on the 27th of last month.

On the 9th, the Ministry of Education announced that as of the 6th, a total of 434 reports of deepfake false synthesis content damage in schools had been received. Among these, 350 cases were referred for investigation, and 184 cases requested deletion support from relevant agencies.

The total number of victims is 617, including 588 students, 27 teachers, and 2 other staff members. This means that about 421 additional victims were identified during the approximately two weeks from the 27th of last month to the 6th. By school level, there were 12 cases in elementary schools, 179 in middle schools, and 243 in high schools, with the highest number of reports coming from high schools.

The scale of victims has increased about threefold compared to the first survey conducted on the 27th of last month, which identified 186 student victims and 10 faculty victims. The reason the number of victims exceeds the number of reports is that multiple victims can be involved in a single report.

A Ministry of Education official stated, "In this second survey, the significant increase in the number of damage reports reflects the prompt guidance on reporting and support provided at schools, as well as a change in victims' awareness of the need to report in order to receive deletion support for the harmful videos."

The number of cases linked to deletion support is a newly added indicator in this second survey, showing that support linkage was made for one out of every three damage cases. Cases where individuals applied for deletion without going through schools or metropolitan/provincial education offices were excluded from the tally.

The Ministry of Education stated that it will continue to regularly investigate and announce the damage status to provide objective and accurate statistical information. Regarding inquiries about plans to publish statistics including the number and characteristics of perpetrators, a Ministry official explained, "It is difficult to identify perpetrators. Many aspects can only be known through police investigations and inquiries."