The number of websites distributing sexual abuse material has fallen 29% in the month since the government launched a crackdown, officials said, after 32 operators were arrested and enforcement was expanded to the illegal gambling sites that serve as their main funding source.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family held the third meeting of the interagency body on digital sex crimes on the 22nd to review the results of the integrated response to illegal websites. Since April, the ministry has run a joint government support unit for victims of digital sex crimes with the Korean National Police Agency and the Korea Communications Commission.
The number of pornographic sites currently in operation fell to 4,736 from 6,683 a month earlier, a decline of about 29%, following government measures to disable them. Police this year arrested 32 operators of sites that repeatedly distributed illegally filmed material and refused requests to delete it. Authorities also seized and collected 2.7 billion won ($1.9 million) in criminal proceeds before indictment.
As a result, 66 illegal sites ceased operating. Police notified overseas providers that had supplied hosting and temporary servers to the sites of the criminal activity, prompting them to terminate the services. In 16 of those cases, developers were also arrested and sexual abuse videos were seized remotely. Among them was a large site with as many as 540,000 members. Last year, only six sites were shut down and nine operators were arrested.
Police also stepped up enforcement against gambling sites that served as a funding pipeline for the illegal sites. Officers arrested 3,663 people linked to gambling sites and closed 236 of them. For 188 of those sites, police secured server administrator privileges to prevent them from reopening and seized 176 billion won ($126 million) in criminal proceeds before indictment.
Police have set up special investigation teams dedicated to illegal websites at the Seoul, Busan, Gyeonggi Nambu and Jeonnam provincial police agencies, and are investigating 76 illegal sites with domestic links, including those operated in Korean. They are also tracking operators who have fled abroad through cooperation with local authorities, after taking custody of the operator of an illegal comics site from Japan in June.
The Korea Communications Standards Commission approved corrective orders to block access to 5,077 of the 6,683 active illegal sites, or 76%. The Korea Communications Commission conducted on-site inspections of 15 content delivery network operators after illegal sites repeatedly used CDNs to evade server blocks. It subsequently restricted CDN-level access for 380 illegal sites.
The commission also decided to adopt private-sector technology that can block encrypted illegal sites. It plans to form a working group to verify compatibility with existing blocking systems before introducing the technology in the first half of next year.
The government plans to introduce an active defense system that would allow investigators to access illegal sites to collect evidence and delete original files. It is also pursuing an amendment to the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information to include digital sex crimes among the crimes subject to transaction suspensions. Authorities plan to develop technology using agentic artificial intelligence to automate the detection and tracking of illegal sites and the collection of evidence.
"This outcome is significant in that we disabled illegal sites with servers located overseas," Gender Equality Minister Won Min-kyung said. "Even if they hide abroad or change domains, we will track illegal sites to the end and root them out."
