SEOUL, 10 September – Save the Children has launched the second phase of its “Delete the Children” campaign in Korea to ramp-up protection of children’s images online, as the country grapples with an AI-generated pornography crisis at schools.

 

Sexually explicit deepfake content - AI-generated images or videos that superimpose the image of a real person’s face over a fake body or onto real pornographic material - sometimes uses images of children taken without their consent from online sources, and has become the subject of public outrage in South Korea.

 

A national children’s survey by Save the Children Korea, whose results were released earlier this year, showed 85.5% of children aged 10 to 18 support guaranteeing children’s right to delete their personal information online, including their images. In the same survey, 98 % of children said they would ask to delete personal information has been posted by others without their consent.[1]

 

In the same survey, while 90% of children said they agreed to personal data collecton to use internet services, more than half, or 53.1%, were unaware their personal data was being provided to external companies for marketing purposes.

 

Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) launched a pilot “eraser service” last year which allows the commission to ask website managers to remove or hide posts that contain personal information of minors. However, the request to remove or hide posts containing personal information can only be made for posts containing personal information that was originally shared by the individual themselves.

 

Through the Delete the Children campaign, Save the Children is asking that this service be extended so that children and their parents can ask to have any of their online information, including digitally altered images, removed and so that children have the right to determine how their personal information is used.

 

Delete the Children also aims to raise social awareness around the protection of children's personal information online and to urge the government to ensure that children’s personally identifiable information, including images and other data, can be removed from online platforms.

 

Earlier this month, South Korea’s national police agency said it was investigating the encrypted messaging app Telegram which it suspects is being used to distribute AI-generated sexually explicit images, including digitally altered images of teenagers shared across several schools and universities in the country.

 

 

Save the Children Korea was established in 1953 aftermath of Korean war and began its transformation from being a recipient of international aid to becoming a donor country. In Korea, Save the Children is a leading organization addressing child rights issues in child protection and a major contributor to the global Save the Children movement in responding to humanitarian crisis such as the Palestine-Israel war, Ukraine war, Turkiye-Syria earthquake and more.

 

*************************************************************************************

 

 

Survey notes:

The survey was conducted by Save the Children Korean from Dec 5 to 7 2023. 1,000 Children aged from 10 to 18 participated all over Korea (51.5% male, 48.5% female / Age group 32.4% (age 10-12), 33.9% (age 13-15), 33.7% age 16-18). The result of this survey was published in February 2024.

 

For further enquiries or media interview requests please contact:

 

Amy Sawitta Lefevre, Global Media Manager (Asia): amy.lefevre@savethechildren.org    

 

Jieun Ginny Shin, Deputy Media Manager, Save the Children Korea: ji-eun.shin@sc.or.kr

 

Our media out of hours (BST) contact is media@savethechildren.org.uk / +44(0)7831 650409

 

Please also check our Twitter account @Save_GlobalNews for news alerts, quotes, statements and location Vlogs.