Police Plan Automatic Alerts After Repeated Unauthorized Personal-Data Searches

South Korea’s National Police Agency is considering a system that would automatically alert a supervisor when a police officer searches multiple personal records within a short period.

The plan would display a warning after an officer exceeded a set number of searches, send a messenger alert to a supervisor when mass searches occurred and place the words “Private searches prohibited” at the top of the screen where officers select the purpose of a query.

The agency is responding to repeated cases in which serving officers allegedly accessed and leaked civilians’ personal information. It said 116 officers received internal disciplinary action between 2021 and July of this year for breaches of confidentiality duties, including unauthorized personal-data searches and disclosure of official secrets.

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The system must go beyond displaying a warning and actually block and detect private searches.

One Seoul officer is under investigation over allegations that he used a police work phone to look up the home address of an acquaintance’s former partner and passed it on. The acquaintance allegedly used the address to hire a private revenge service to scatter waste outside the former partner’s home.

In another case, the Gyeonggi Northern Provincial Police Agency arrested a serving officer accused of passing information retrieved from an internal network to a private investigator. Prosecutors in Suwon also indicted two officers in July for allegedly selling wanted-person information to a private investigator. A professor called for stronger detection and penalties, while lawmaker Kang Myung-koo said police systems should prevent unauthorized searches and impose strict responsibility for leaks.

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Authority granted to protect the public is being misused as a tool for crime.