For all of 2017, around 96 percent of 5,437 hidden-camera related suspects were male and 119 of them were officially booked. (image: Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — Recent government statistics have revealed that the number of videos that were deleted from the Internet after requests from victims of “digital sex crimes” this year has increased significantly from last year.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said Tuesday that it provided 49,156 cases of counseling, deletion and investigation support to a total of 1,030 victims in an analysis of the Digital Sexual Crimes Victims Support Center’s performance in the first half of 2019.
Out of the total number of applications, 46,217 resulted in videos being deleted.
The figure is far higher than the 33,921 cases recorded in the eight months from April 30, 2018, when the center was set up at the Korea Women’s Human Rights Institute of Korea, to December 31 of the same year.
According to the monthly average number of applications for deletion, the number of cases in 2018 was 3,610 but more than doubled to 7,703 in 2019.
The ministry said that the increase in the number of employees supporting deletion contributed greatly to the increased number of deleted videos.
The number of support personnel increased from nine to 16. Furthermore, all of the employees were able to do their jobs based on the accumulated experience in the job description.
Meanwhile, according to the current status of deletion support by platform, peer-to-peer (P2P), which is a case where data is directly shared between individuals on the Internet, was the most requested platform for deletion, accounting for 35.4 percent, or 16,344 cases.
This was followed by search results at 13,932 cases, or 30.1 percent, and 12,894 cases of videos on adult sites, accounting for 27.9 percent.
Of the 1,030 victims whose videos were deleted in the first half of this year, 885, or 85.9 percent were female and 145, or 14.1 percent were male victims of digital sex crimes.
The figure reaffirms that digital sex crimes disproportionately target women.
In terms of age, people in their 20s, accounting for 229 or 22.2 percent of the total, were victimized the most, except for cases where the victims did not reveal their age, which accounted for 570 or 55.3 percent.
The ministry is planning to establish a support system that will allow users to search for images or videos of sexual crimes 24 hours a day, 365 days a year later this year.
In particular, the ministry has decided to improve the method of deletion support, which is done manually, by developing an automated system to speed up the process.
D. M. Park (dmpark@koreabizwire.com)
