Wiretapping Controversy
The necessity of social consensus is emerging in the wake of Daum Kakao’s announcement that it will no longer comply with the government’s wiretapping warrants on its users. Daum Kakao announced on Oct. 13 that it will take extra measures on full scale to protect the privacy of the users. The company announced that it cut down the duration of which the messages are saved on its servers from seven to a maximum of three days as of Oct. 8, and stopped honoring court warrants for real-time monitoring as of Oct 7. A statement that Daum Kakao gave to BusinessKorea reads, "Daum Kakao will make privacy its top priority when there is a discord between privacy and the law."
Violation of the positive law can be avoided if messenger chats are not stored on the server, since the company does not have the capability to monitor conversations in real time. However even legal eavesdropping becomes impossible then, and criminals threatening national security cannot be observed. Under the circumstances, experts point out that an alternative is required that protects both privacy and offers security at the same time.
Persistent Controversy over Illegality
According to current law, every telecoms operator has to comply with the communications restriction measure and communications data requests from investigators. However, it does not specify any penalty for those violating the provision. This is why Daum Kakao CEO Lee Sir-goo is said by many to be innocent with regard to his disobedience of the warrants.
It is also said that the regular disclosure of transparency reports mentioned by Daum Kakao could be problematic. “The disclosure of the report could constitute a breach of confidentiality stipulated in Article 11 and be subject to a prison sentence,” an industry insider explained.
“Strictly speaking, opened KakaoTalk messages are not a result of wiretapping but the result of search and seizure,” said the Science, ICT, Future Planning, Broadcasting and Communications Committee of the National Assembly, continuing, “Daum Kakao, which has no real-time monitoring capability, is not refusing to comply with the request but unable to do so.”
The controversy is likely to further heat up, as the CEO is scheduled to testify in the parliamentary inspection of the Seoul High Prosecutors’ Office on Oct. 16. The opposition parties criticized the authorities as having caused the company to resort to supra-legal measures by over-zealous investigations during the parliamentary inspection of the Ministry of Justice on the preceding day.
What if Wiretapping Is Required?
In the second half of 2013, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) tapped 2,416 phone numbers, 96 percent of all wiretaps. More than 70 percent of the wiretapping performed by the intelligence agency covers foreign missions. “Foreign missions themselves are aware of the fact that the NIS overhears them,” a lawmaker pointed out, adding, “This is an international practice, and other countries are doing exactly the same thing for national security purposes as we do.”
The United States has allowed a much higher level of eavesdropping since the Sept. 11 attacks. Germany and Belgium even hack PCs and smartphones to forestall terrorist attacks before they start. With the situation as it is, both government and industry are required to pool their wisdom to assuage public concerns while maintaining essential communications monitoring for national security. Those calling for this step are asking national agencies to build trust before anything else and laws to be revised to strike a balance between privacy protection and national security.
In the meantime, Internet companies such as Daum Kakao, Naver, and SK Communications will meet with each other on October 17 or later in order to prepare countermeasures against cyber censorship. The idea is to overcome the illegality controversy that Daum Kakao is suffering from by coming up with proper measures and stop anxiety from spreading to the whole of society by Daum Kakao getting beaten up by the media.