S. Korea under fire for imposing strict disaster management rules on private firms

Seoul, Sep 28 (IANS) The South Korean government has been under fire for imposing strict disaster-response requirements on private-sector companies even though it has failed to ensure proper safeguards for the administrative computer network that was crippled by a recent fire at the state data centre.

The government has included companies not directly linked to public safety, such as Netflix, Coupang Play and Samsung Health, in a list of firms required to establish a mandatory telecommunications disaster management plan for next year, according to a report submitted by the science ministry to a ruling party lawmaker, reports Yonhap news agency.

A total of 29 companies will be subject to the obligation, including 11 telecom carriers with network infrastructure and 10 value-added service providers with either more than 10 million daily users or accounting for at least 2 percent of national internet traffic.

Companies, such as Naver, Kakao, Google, Netflix and Coupang, fall under the mandate.

Critics argue that applying the same obligations to streaming platforms is excessive given their limited role in public safety.

The government introduced the requirement after a 2022 fire at a data center in Pangyo, just south of Seoul, caused widespread disruptions to Kakao services.

The government is now under fire for failing to apply the same strict standards to its own network systems. A fire Friday at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) server center in the central city of Daejeon revealed the lack of a cloud-based disaster recovery system, leading to large-scale disruptions in administrative services.

Critics say the government has failed to learn lessons not only from the Kakao outage but also from a 2018 KT network disruption caused by a fire at its Ahyeon facility in Seoul, according to the report.

—IANS

na/