[Exclusive] National Police Launches Special Audit of Systems After Officers Sold Personal Data to Private Investigators

Nationwide Police Audit on "Private Searches of Personal Information"
Incidents Range from Leaking Investigative Information to Selling Personal Data

In response to a series of issues such as the leaking of investigative information and police officers' unauthorized personal inquiries into private information, the National Police Agency will conduct a special audit targeting all police stations nationwide on the management status of their investigative and administrative computerized systems.

According to the police on September 15, the National Police Agency launched a special audit from the previous day focusing on the actual conditions of unauthorized personal inquiries of private information. This is the first audit since Kim Jongcheol assumed the position as Acting Commissioner General of the National Police Agency on September 3. Under the direction of the main audit office, police agencies in metropolitan and provincial areas, as well as local police stations, are also scheduled to conduct their own internal inspections. The audit will be conducted for five weeks, until October 16, and each local police station must report its audit results to the regional agency by October 20.

Specifically, the National Police Agency will examine investigative systems such as the Korea Integrated Criminal Justice Information System (KICS), the Scientific Crime Analysis System (SCAS), identity verification systems, as well as other systems including the Traffic Police Work Management System (TCS) for instances of unauthorized personal lookups or information leaks and improper usage. The audit will also diagnose the underlying structural causes for repeated violations.

Additionally, the 17 district police agencies will select a one-year period from last year to this year to audit general systems such as POL Inquiry, Poliphone, and TCS, while local police stations will check police IT systems that are not covered by the central audit scope.

This audit is being interpreted as a response to a series of recent incidents in which police officers leaked investigative information or sold personal information for money. The Northern Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency recently arrested Officer A, who handed over information obtained from the internal network to an outsider in exchange for bribes. Previously, Officer B from the South Gyeongsang region was also indicted and detained for passing information accessed via the internal network to a private detective.

The National Police Agency recognizes such incidents as “serious misconduct” that undermines public trust in the police organization as a whole. The recent case in Gwangju, where Jang Yunki murdered a high school girl with whom he had no prior acquaintance, has raised concerns of investigative negligence, as it was revealed that some investigation team members leaked specific details such as the plan to apply for an arrest warrant, the schedule for returning seized mobile phones, and additional search and seizure plans to Jang Yunki’s father, who is an active police officer.

Meanwhile, according to data submitted by the National Police Agency to the office of Assemblyman Park Sangwoong, a member of the National Assembly’s Public Administration and Security Committee, 209 police officers have been indicted for crimes related to official duties and authority from 2021 to July 2026. Of these, there were 70 cases (33.5%) of breach of official secrets, the most common charge, followed by 32 cases (15.3%) involving violations of the Personal Information Protection Act.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.