Deepfake Sexual Crimes Up Twelvefold... Monitoring Staff Remain Stagnant

Correction Requests Surge from 1,913 in 2021 to 23,107 in 2024
Cho Incheol: "Work Overload... Urgent Need to Expand Review Infrastructure"

Over the past three years, the number of reviews for deepfake sexual crime videos has surged nearly twelvefold, yet the personnel monitoring these cases has remained virtually unchanged.

According to the National Assembly audit data titled "Status of Correction Requests for Deepfake Sexual Crime Videos," submitted by the Korea Communications Standards Commission to Assemblyman Cho Incheol of the Democratic Party of Korea (Gwangju Seo-gu Gap) on September 29, the number of cases reviewed increased significantly: 1,913 in 2021, 3,574 in 2022, 7,187 in 2023, and 23,107 in 2024. As of August this year, the figure already stands at 15,808, reflecting a sharp upward trend.

In contrast, the number of personnel responsible for these reviews remains severely insufficient. The number of dedicated staff for reviewing digital sexual crime information increased by only one, from eight in 2021 to nine at present. The average daily number of cases reviewed more than doubled, from 136 in 2020 to 347 in 2024, making work overload and review backlogs inevitable.

The number of victims is also rising rapidly. According to the National Police Agency's "Status of Teenage Victims of Deepfake Crimes," the number of teenage victims of deepfake crimes increased more than threefold, from 53 in 2021 to 181 in 2023. In particular, since the main distribution channels are illegal overseas pornography sites and P2P sites, the risk of damage spreading becomes even greater if the response is delayed.

Assemblyman Cho emphasized, "Deepfake sexual crimes leave indelible scars on victims for life," and added, "Despite the surge in damage, both personnel and budget are severely lacking, so the monitoring infrastructure must be expanded as soon as possible."

Meanwhile, last year, Assemblyman Cho sponsored and passed the "Deepfake Sexual Crime Eradication Act," which focuses on strengthening platform responsibility by toughening penalties for perpetrators and imposing obligations to delete illegal videos.