hankyoreh

By Koo Bon-kwon, Business Correspondent

The government is effectively abandoning the Internet real name confirmation system, which has been pointed to as a leading example of regulations that suppress freedom of expression in the information age.
In a 2012 operational report Thursday with President Lee Myung-bak in attendance, the Korea Communications Commission said it would be reexamining the real name system and prohibiting the collection and use of resident registration numbers on the Internet.
In its operational plan, the KCC said it would "examine future improvements to the system out of concerns about reverse discrimination against domestic companies owing to changes to the communications environment, including the spread of overseas social networking services, as well as the diminishing image of the country as an IT power."
A senior KCC official said, "We've basically taken steps for [the real name system's] discontinuation, but we used the term 'reexamine' because of discussions with other agencies."
Sources reported that the KCC's chairman Choi See-joong and four other standing committee members all agreed with the discontinuation of the system.
This marks the first time the government has openly talked about ending the system since its introduction in 2007. In April 2009, one year after large candlelight vigils in 2008 to protest the resumption of US beef imports, the government significantly lowered the minimum number of visitors for application of the system from 300 thousand a day to 100 thousand a day, prompting an outcry from critics charging suppression of freedom of expression. Google's YouTube site blocked uploading from South Korean users in response to the system, and news spread about the country's Internet regulations, which were without precedent around the world. A Constitutional Court petition was filed by People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy in early 2010.
The system was also subject to a growing debate over its effectiveness with the spread of social networking services like Twitter and Facebook that do not require it, since they are based overseas. In March of this year, the government backtracked somewhat, stating that social networking services were "not subject to the real name system."
With the KCC declaring its plans to end the system, the task remains of amending the relevant law.
Korean Progressive Network activist Chang Yeo-kyung said, "Even if they eliminate the real name system and prohibit the collection of resident numbers, it could end up as a change for the worse, since making the use of the alternative means of the 'i-PIN' mandatory would concentrate the resident numbers with five private businesses."
"Any kind of state system compelling the use of real names is a major infringement of human rights and needs to be eliminated in both online and offline environments," Chang said.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]