2026 Korean National Police Agency national audit
Coupang data-leak developer probe nears one year
National Investigation HQ chief says China coordination under way
Acting Korean National Police Agency Commissioner Kim Jong-cheol said Monday that suspending use of the roughly 14,000 bodycams deployed to officers in the field would be difficult, citing a lack of clear evidence of data leakage amid allegations that the devices are Chinese-made.
Kim made the remarks at a national audit by the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee on Monday, in response to a question from People Power Party lawmaker Park Sang-ung, who asked whether Kim could guarantee that not a single piece of data collected by the bodycams had been transmitted to China.
The Korean National Police Agency had allocated 19.5 billion won ($14.6 million) to a bodycam procurement project, designating KT Corp and other companies as contractors and distributing more than 14,000 units to officers. Suspicions later emerged that the devices were similar to Chinese-manufactured products. The Korea Testing Laboratory, an affiliate of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, notified the agency in June that a review had found the bodycams were highly likely to be identical to a Chinese-made model.
Park said the devices were suspected to be Chinese-made products disguised as Taiwanese, warning that any leak of personal data or law-enforcement secrets to China would pose a threat to national security. He added that the Chinese manufacturer in question had been fined in the United States over a trade-secret theft case and placed under regulatory restrictions.
When Park asked whether the agency would consider terminating the contract and seeking damages if the bodycams were conclusively found to be Chinese-made, Kim said it would.
However, when Park pressed on whether use of the bodycams should be suspended pending the results of a full analysis, Kim said the agency had been informed that an assessment found "no particular security problems, though an extremely small number of vulnerabilities exist," and that suspending use immediately would be difficult.
Kim added that the agency would "take swift action based on the audit findings" and expressed regret for failing to more closely oversee the bodycam procurement process.
The audit also drew scrutiny over the status of the investigation into the massive Coupang Inc data breach, with lawmakers questioning the progress of efforts to track down a suspect who fled to China — a case police have been investigating for nearly a year.
Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Lee Sang-sik said the investigation into the Coupang case, which had drawn widespread public outrage, was taking far too long, and asked whether the delays were due to the suspect having fled to China and whether the probe was being conducted properly. National Investigation Headquarters Chief Hong Seok-gi said the suspect had been identified and that authorities were in talks with China, adding that the agency would continue to verify and build the case through international cooperation.
Police had identified a former Chinese developer as the suspect behind the leak of personal data belonging to about 37 million Coupang Inc customers and requested an Interpol red notice in December last year.
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