South Korea to seek tougher punishment for deepfake sex crimes, 'hotline' with Telegram

SEOUL: The government and the ruling People Power Party (PPP) agreed on Thursday to strengthen measures against deepfake sex crimes after a series of such pornography targeting young women on a messaging app sparked public outrage.

During an emergency meeting at the National Assembly, the two sides also agreed to push for a hotline with Telegram and to take legislative measures to increase the maximum prison term from the current five years to seven years for a person making sexually explicit deepfake materials to distribute them, Yonhap news agency reported.

"It is being widely circulated through Telegram but there appear to be challenges in international cooperation as the servers (of Telegram) are located overseas," Kim Sang-hoon, the ruling party's top policymaker, said after the government and the PPP held an emergency meeting.

The government said it would hold a meeting with Telegram and seek to secure a hotline with the company for year-round consultations, Kim added.

Numerous chat rooms suspected of creating and distributing deepfake pornographic material with doctored photos of ordinary women and female service members have been discovered on Telegram recently, with many of the victims and perpetrators known to be teenagers.

PPP leader Han Dong-hoon urged swift government measures to prevent such incidents and stressed the need to lower the age standard for criminal minors.

Currently, children aged between 10 and 14 cannot be held criminally responsible for their actions and are instead sent to juvenile detention facilities, not prisons, or made to do community service, following the Juvenile Act.

Also at the meeting, the government and the PPP agreed to set up an interagency task force under the Office for Government Policy Coordination (OGPC) to lead the response to deepfake sex crimes.

The task force will be headed by Kim Jong-moon, first deputy minister of the OGPC, and hold its first meeting on Friday.

The defence ministry said it is actively cooperating with police investigations and taking steps to protect the victims, such as offering counseling and receiving reports.

"We are aware of the gravity of the situation," Jeon Ha-kyou, the ministry's spokesperson, told a briefing. "We will also carry out various prevention measures, such as preventative education."

During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol urged authorities to beef up efforts to crack down on digital sex crimes to combat the AI-generated deepfake content.