Firefighters submerge lithium-ion batteries in water while extinguishing a fire at the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon, some 140 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on Sept. 27, 2025. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — The South Korean government is drawing criticism for imposing strict disaster-response requirements on private companies while failing to safeguard its own systems, after a fire at a state-run data center crippled key administrative services.
According to a science ministry report submitted to a ruling party lawmaker, the government plans to require 29 companies to establish mandatory telecommunications disaster management plans beginning next year.
The list includes 11 telecom carriers with network infrastructure and 10 service providers with either more than 10 million daily users or at least 2 percent of national internet traffic. Firms such as Naver, Kakao, Google, Netflix and Coupang fall under the mandate.
The government has included companies not directly linked to public safety, such as Netflix, Coupang Play and Samsung Health, in a list of firms required to establish a mandatory telecommunications disaster management plan for next year, according to a report submitted by the science ministry to a ruling party lawmaker.
Critics argue that applying the same obligations to video-streaming platforms and other services with little direct link to public safety is excessive. The rules were introduced after a 2022 fire at a data center in Pangyo, south of Seoul, disrupted Kakao services nationwide and prompted public outcry.
But the government’s own systems remain vulnerable. A fire Friday at the National Information Resources Service in Daejeon exposed the absence of a cloud-based disaster recovery framework, leading to widespread disruptions of administrative networks.
Observers say officials have failed to heed lessons from past incidents, including the Kakao outage and a 2018 blaze at KT’s Ahyeon facility in Seoul that caused major internet disruptions. The latest failure, they warn, underscores a troubling double standard: demanding rigorous safeguards from the private sector while neglecting the resilience of critical state infrastructure.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
