South Korea's military counterintelligence agency still holds surveillance files on about 590,000 veterans who are now civilians, eight years after the files were supposed to have been scrapped, according to data released on the 21st.
The files date to the Defense Security Command, known as Kimusa, which the Moon Jae-in administration disbanded in 2018 and replaced with the Defense Security Support Command. The administration drafted an operating directive for the new unit, and as part of the overhaul it abolished the veterans affairs division, a unit at the center of allegations of political interference. The records that division had kept on veterans' activities during their active-duty years were to be eliminated along with it.
They were not. The files remained on record through the Defense Security Support Command, created under Moon, the Defense Counterintelligence Command, created under the Yoon Suk Yeol administration, and the Defense Counterintelligence Agency, created under the Lee Jae-myung administration.
According to the office of Rep. Kang Sun-young of the People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly's National Defense Committee, the new Defense Counterintelligence Agency held records as of August on about 570,000 officers, about 18,000 warrant officers and about 2,000 non-commissioned officers — roughly 590,000 people in total. Because all of them are now civilians, critics say keeping the files amounts to surveillance of private citizens.
The records also continued to be used by successive administrations after Kimusa was disbanded. Between 2018 and 2026, the second year of the Lee administration, veterans' files were accessed 211 times, an average of more than 20 times a year. The agencies that drew on them included the presidential office, the Presidential Security Service and the National Intelligence Service.
The files are records that military intelligence units — including the earlier Defense Security Command and Kimusa — compiled and maintained by monitoring the day-to-day activities of service members and civilian defense employees. Critics have long argued the records should be abolished, calling them the source of unchecked power that allowed the agencies to intervene in military personnel decisions. Following Kimusa's dissolution, military intelligence units were barred from monitoring service members and civilian defense employees.
Concern runs high inside and outside the military that files slated for destruction are still being kept under the current government. Critics argue the defense authorities are inviting renewed allegations of the illegal practices of past military intelligence units, including political interference and surveillance of civilians. Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back said in June the files would be destroyed, but the military has yet to act.
An official at the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy said history has already shown that military intelligence units wielded unchecked power, including intervening in military personnel decisions, by managing these files, and that the practice was banned for that reason. "The intent behind still holding the old files is suspect," the official said, adding that this is why the presidential office and the National Intelligence Service have repeatedly consulted Kimusa files on military personnel matters.
Kang said that as long as military intelligence units keep the files, they will not escape the temptation to intervene in personnel decisions or wield power by offering to supply information on military personnel. "Using records of veterans' activities from their active-duty years amounts to surveillance of civilians, and the files should now be destroyed unconditionally the moment they leave the service," she said.
The Ministry of National Defense said the counterintelligence agency is barred from using the files. The ministry said the veterans' records were due to be transferred to it following the dissolution of the Defense Counterintelligence Command, but that procedural issues including the relevant legislation have not been settled, leaving the Defense Counterintelligence Agency to hold them temporarily. Once a legal basis is in place, the ministry said, it will take steps to eliminate the files and resolve the controversy.
