Seoul (EFE).- South Korean residents will be required to use a real-time facial recognition program to activate new mobile phone lines starting Tuesday, under a pilot measure that authorities say is aimed at combating telephone fraud.
The rule requires anyone seeking to open a new mobile line in the country to verify that their face matches the photograph on their identification document through PASS, a facial recognition application widely used by public institutions, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
The nation’s three major mobile carriers — SK Telecom, KT and LG U+ — as well as virtual mobile operators must begin applying the measure from today. It is scheduled to take effect officially in March 2026.
The South Korean government has said the application will only verify whether a user’s face matches the photo on their ID and will not store personal identity data, in an effort to ease public concerns amid a series of major data breaches.
Hackers stole the personal data of 23.24 million SK Telecom customers in April, while in a separate incident in late November e-commerce giant Coupang acknowledged that information belonging to 33.7 million customers had been exposed in a cyberattack.
The new requirement was announced last week as part of Seoul’s efforts to curb a surge in telephone phishing scams over the past year, which caused annual losses exceeding 1.13 trillion won (about $761 million), according to government figures cited by Yonhap.
Authorities say they hope the facial recognition requirement will put an end to the creation of mobile accounts using falsified or stolen identity data. EFE
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