CIO chief defends phone log collection

Dec 31, 2021, 08:49 am

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Kim Jin-wook, head of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, speaks during a judiciary committee meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul on Dec. 30, 2021./ Source: Pool photo

AsiaToday reporter Jeong Geum-min

Kim Jin-wook, head of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO), on Thursday defended his agency’s phone log collection of main opposition presidential nominee Yoon Suk-yeol and other opposition lawmakers, saying, “Why is only the CIO being accused of surveillance?”

He said the CIO collected Yoon’s communication records three times and that of the candidate’s wife in a single instance. He claimed prosecutors collected phone logs of Yoon and the wife four and five times, respectively.

“According to the media reports, the Central District Prosecutors’ Office and the Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office collected phone logs of opposition lawmakers 74 times this year,” Kim said. “According to data from the Ministry of Science and ICT, the prosecution had inquired with mobile carriers for phone logs some 597,000 times, and the police inquire in 1.87 million cases, but the CIO had checked on only 135 cases last year. This is not surveillance in terms of the number of instances,” he said.

Kim also said the CIO had collected records of Park Jie-won, the head of the National Intelligence Service who is also under a separate CIO investigation over political meddling allegations.

Kim claimed that the agency’s “phone log collection” is just a normal part of investigations. When asked if the term ‘surveillance’ used by the opposition party is appropriate, Kim answered, “Surveillance is targeting someone specific, but you don’t know who the target is with phone logging.”

The Article 83-3 of the Telecommunications Business Act stipulates that a telecommunications business operator may comply with a request for the perusal or provision of communications data from a court, a prosecutor, the head of an investigative agency or the head of an intelligence and investigation agency to prevent any threat to the guarantee of the national security.

However, the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) claims that it was “excessive” for the CIO to check phone logs of hundreds of people, including the PPP’s presidential candidate and some 80 lawmakers from the conservative opposition party. PPP lawmaker Kwon Seong-dong said, “There are only two lawmakers from the opposition party who have been charged with the accusation. But why did the CIO check everyone’s phone log?”

Geum Tae-seop, the head of the Strategic Planning Office under the PPP Central Election Committee, wrote on his Facebook that the CIO should be abolished.

#CIO #Kim Jin-wook #phone log collection