They will create a rule that allows punishment even if a person does not produce illegal recordings but only sets up a distribution site. Investigative authorities will also be given the authority to hack so they can delete sexual exploitation material distributed on illegal sites and collect it as evidence.
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the Korea Media and Communications Commission, and the Korean National Police Agency announced on the 20th a "comprehensive response plan for illegal sites" containing these measures.
Digital sex crimes such as the production and distribution of illegal recordings have scarcely declined. They fell from 4,439 cases in 2021 to 2,314 cases in 2023, then rose to 3,579 cases in 2024 and 4,273 cases in 2025.
The rate of noncompliance with deletion requests from the Center for Support of Victims of Digital Sex Crimes also increased from 24.4% in 2022 to 28.5% in 2025. Because most illegal sites evade domestic law by placing servers overseas, sanctions are difficult.
In response, the authorities decided to strengthen punishments and investigations related to digital sex crimes. First, as the Criminal Act punishes not only those who gamble but also those who open gambling dens, the Act on Punishment of Sexual Violence Crimes will be amended to allow punishment of those who set up illegal sites.
They will also create a 20-person "illegal sites special investigation team" at the Seoul, Busan, Gyeonggi Nambu, and Jeonnam police agencies to conduct proactive investigations targeting the overall operators, and expand cooperation with overseas bodies such as the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
They will also introduce an "active defense system." This is "lawful hacking," in which investigative authorities directly access illegal sites to gather leads and delete original data. Acting Commissioner Yoo Jae-seong of the Korean National Police Agency said, "If the server location or the suspect has not been identified, execution should be based on a court warrant," adding, "If the server location is identified, cooperation with law enforcement agencies in other countries is also necessary."
They will establish a legal basis to block advertisements, a major revenue source for illegal sites, and, through the enhanced due diligence (EDD) under the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information, also push to suspend transactions of accounts used to operate illegal sites.
In cooperation with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), they will sanction platform operators that repeatedly refuse deletion requests and prepare an emergency blocking system that allows the Minister of Gender Equality and Family to directly request access blocking from key telecommunications carriers. Platform operators will also be obligated to delete and report child and youth sexual exploitation materials when discovered.
They will develop technology to automatically detect "domain shuffling," which relaunches sites by changing only the domain (site address), and build a system that automatically blocks without review if similarity with an existing site is high.
An official at the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said, "As long as there is a structure that distributes sexual exploitation materials, digital sex crimes will repeat, so we set a direction to neutralize illegal sites," adding, "We plan to actively request investigations into sites where harm to Koreans is severe."