Personal information leaks continue to occur... Applications for resident registration number change decreased by 32%.

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Cha Min-ji = Although large-scale personal information leaks are occurring one after another, applications for changes to resident registration numbers this year have actually decreased compared to last year.

It is analyzed that the main reason for the change application is the decline in voice phishing crimes.

According to the Resident Registration Number Change Committee (Change Committee) on the 11th, the number of applications for resident registration number change from January to September this year was 1,133.

The monthly average is about 126 cases.

This is 32.4% less than the monthly average of 2,235 applications last year, which was about 186 applications.

The number of applications in September this year was 100, a 46.5% decrease from the same month last year (187 cases).

The number of annual applications increased every year to 1,127 in 2020, 1,344 in 2021, 1,547 in 2022, 1,942 in 2023, 1,986 in 2024, and 2,235 last year, but the increase appears to be slowing this year.

The change committee cited the decline in voice phishing as the biggest cause of the decline in applications.

An official from the Change Committee said, “The biggest reason seems to be that voice phishing has decreased as publicity for voice phishing crimes has increased, so people are less likely to be deceived, and (members of the organization) have been arrested in Cambodia as well.”

In fact, according to the police, the number of voice phishing cases from January to August this year was 8,584, a 49% decrease from the same period last year (16,765 cases).

The amount of damage also decreased by 56% from 885.6 billion won to 387.1 billion won.

Accordingly, applications for resident registration number changes due to voice phishing have also decreased significantly.

The number of cases was 285 from January to September this year, less than half of the 951 cases per year last year.

Requests for changes related to SK Telecom and Tving, where large-scale personal information leaks occurred, have also been received, but citations are virtually difficult.

This is because the change committee considers the causal relationship between the leak of resident registration numbers and actual damage during the deliberation process.

An official from the change committee said, “If there are only vague concerns without actual damage with a direct causal relationship, it is not a reason for change.”

A total of 13,314 applications for resident registration number changes were received from June 2017, when the system was implemented, to September this year.

Among these, 8,276 of the 11,879 cases that were reviewed and resolved were cited, resulting in a citation rate of 69.7%.

There were 3,546 cases dismissed and 57 cases dismissed.