By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter


Korea’s telecom companies and Internet firms provided personal data 1.38 million times to law enforcement agencies over the first six months of this year, the highest half-year figure yet.

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) Friday revealed the high tally, up 127.5 percent from a year before, triggering the anger of privacy advocates.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) headed the increase as the spy agency received an average of 10.16 pieces of personal data, such as phone numbers and Web identification information, with a single warrant compared to the overall average of 7.88.

``A total of 94 telecom operators and Web portal sites have given subscribers’ data to the NIS, the police and prosecutors,’’ MIC director Kim Yong-il said.

In addition, telecom firms provided the details of phone calls, such as call time and receivers, 111,134 times during the first half for a 38 percent hike from last year.

By contrast, the number of wiretapping cases was reduced to 550 over the sixth months to June, down 40 percent from the 917 cases that took place during the corresponding period of 2004.

Broken down by agency, the NIS headed the list by conducting eavesdropping 358 times, followed by the police with 104 and the prosecution with 31.

``The number of wiretapping of mobile phone short messages led the decline in government eavesdropping as wireless operators do not hoard messages any more,’’ Kim said.

Wiretapping on fixed-line phone calls stood at 364 cases and on Internet communication at 185. In comparison, eavesdropping on cell phone messages plunged to a single case from 148 during the first half of last year.

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