The South Korean government plans to expand the confiscation of proceeds from industrial technology leak crimes and grant the Ministry of Trade and Industry special judicial police powers to conduct its own investigations. It will also widen core technology screening to cover sales and withdrawals of overseas units, strengthening both preventive controls and after-the-fact punishment.
The ministry said it discussed the technology protection measures at the 76th meeting of the Industrial Technology Protection Committee on the 19th, chaired by Minister Kim Jung-kwan. Alongside the ministries that usually attend, the Korean National Police Agency, the Serious Crimes Investigation Agency, the Public Prosecution Agency and the Defense Acquisition Program Administration joined the session to discuss ways to strengthen government-wide cooperation.
The government will first broaden the scope of confiscation and collection of gains made through technology leak crimes. The aim is to redesign the system so that the penalties for getting caught outweigh the economic benefits of the crime. It will also push to require that damages paid to victimized companies include, at a minimum, the costs spent developing the technology in question. The government plans to seek higher Supreme Court sentencing guidelines for technology leak crimes and to establish new sentencing guidelines for fines.
The investigative framework for technology leak cases will also be overhauled. The plan is to grant the ministry special judicial police powers so that government officials with expertise in industrial technology can investigate cases directly. The government will promote information sharing between policy ministries and intelligence and investigative agencies to respond quickly to leak cases. It will also create a legal basis for courts to ask the ministry to confirm whether a given technology qualifies as industrial technology during trials.
The range of advance screening for national core technologies will be expanded as well. The government will include sales and withdrawals of overseas units linked to national core technologies, as well as indirect mergers and acquisitions by foreigners through domestic corporations or organizations. The goal is to close blind spots in which core technologies flow abroad through corporate restructuring of overseas operations or indirect acquisitions using domestic entities.
Management of key personnel in advanced industries such as semiconductors who move to overseas employers will also be tightened. The government will review incentives for key personnel and ways to obtain information needed to verify job changes, while minimizing any infringement of basic rights such as freedom of occupational choice. It will step up surveys of smaller companies and universities with weak security management and strengthen security oversight of research and development projects involving national core technologies. The government will also create grounds to order companies to act when they fail to carry out required improvements.
The government is tightening its technology leak measures because leaks targeting advanced industries such as semiconductors and displays have continued. The National Intelligence Service detected 22 cases of industrial technology flowing overseas in 2021, 20 in 2022, 23 in 2023, 23 in 2024 and 19 last year, for a total of 107 cases over the past five years. The recent parliamentary audit of government agencies also raised calls for stronger government oversight of overseas job moves by key semiconductor personnel and of technology leaks.
The government plans to reflect the measures in amendments to the Industrial Technology Protection Act and the Special Act on Advanced Strategic Industries and to seek their introduction this month. The content will also be included in the sixth comprehensive plan for industrial technology protection, which is being prepared a year ahead of the original schedule and is due to be announced within the year.
"Technology leaks are a grave problem that can destroy in an instant the industrial competitiveness that the state and companies have built up over long periods and at enormous cost, and that even threaten national security," Kim said. "We will carry out the introduction of the bills and the announcement of the comprehensive plan without a hitch and make sure we protect the nation's industrial technology."