Please note that criminal background check searches out of South Korea are suspended until further notice. The courts changed their access policy and now require a case number in order to access court records. The recent legislation amended in the PIPA (Personal Information Protection Law) limits the collection and use of the Korean ID number which is necessary in order to complete a criminal search out of South Korea.
There has been significant legislative and administrative activity in the data protection field in South Korea recently. The Korean Personal Information Protection Act which took effect in 2011 regulates public and private sector processing of the personal information of individuals.
The latest update to the Act was released on 07 Aug 2014 and announced the intention to prohibit Resident Registration Numbers (KID) being collected and processed with an anticipated enforcement date of 6th February 2015.
The new notification update relates to restrictions on the management of the KID.There is significant confusion around this as other sections of the Act, allowing for the collection of the KID with consent have NOT been amended.
On the same date the Seoul District Courteffected a change to their court database (which is linked to the Korean Court Network) access , which in effect rendered it impossible to conduct a search on an individual within their database, which holds bankruptcy, civil litigation and criminal court case details.
Prior to 07 August a search of the Seoul District Court database could be made using an individual’s name and KID. Effective 07 August this access was removed and searching the database is only possible with a SPECIFIC case name and the individual’s name.There was NO notification of this change.
In summary effective 07 August 2014 verification of the status of an individual’s bankruptcy, civil litigation and criminal court case records is NO longer available
