South Korea: Government developing app showing real-time location of stalkers

South Korean authorities are developing a mobile app for stalking victims to track in real-time the location of their stalkers, if they’re nearby.

The app, announced by South Korea’s justice ministry on Wednesday, is part of an approved amendment to the country’s electronic monitoring law.

Stalkers have become a subject of public concern in South Korea, especially as high-profile crimes involving stalking have made headlines in recent years.

Under the current law, stalking victims can receive text message alerts when their stalkers are nearby – though these do not reveal stalkers’ exact locations.

This makes it difficult for victims to determine the direction of the perpetrator, the justice ministry said in a statement.

Under the revised law, victims will be allowed to see their stalker’s location on a map with their smartphones, allowing them to evacuate to safety.

Authorities track stalkers’ whereabouts using wearable electronic devices.

The justice ministry said it was also working on integrating the tracking system into the national emergency hotline, so police could be deployed to protect victims as needed.

This integration is expected to be completed next year, local media reported.

Critics have voiced concern over the pervasiveness of stalking in South Korea, which they see as part of a wider problem of violence against women – many of whom have been secretly filmed by spy cameras and faced hostile threats for being feminists.

In 2022, public anger erupted over the murder of a young woman by her male ex-colleague, who had been stalking her for years. Although she had reported him to the police, he was not detained or given a restraining order as authorities viewed him as “low risk”.

In 2021, South Korea introduced an anti-stalking law that carries up to three years of jail for offenders and a maximum fine of 30 million Korean won ($20,400; £15,300).

In 2023, South Korea’s parliament revised the law to lower the barrier to prosecuting stalkers.

The number of reports against stalkers have surged since then, from 7,600 in 2022 to more than 13,000 last year, according to data from the justice ministry.