South Korea's Broadcasting Media Communication Deliberation Committee has moved to prevent further harm by coordinating with international organisations over Google's unauthorised provision of information on digital sex crime victims.

The committee said on Sept. 13 it asked Google and the site in question to remove the content and launched an emergency review. It also shared relevant information with international organisations including the International Association of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE) and asked overseas operators to establish systems to manage and protect information.

The case involves Google providing victim-related information that had been submitted for deleting digital sex crime content to an outside organisation, leading to the information being made public on that organisation's website.

The committee said it recognised the incident on Aug. 26 and then worked with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family to directly request deletions from Google and the site and to begin an emergency review.

Of the posts for which the ministry requested review, the committee said it asked the site to delete a total of 42 posts, including 16 cases in which it sought proactive deletion before the review and then requested corrective action to block access. It also demanded deletion of search terms related to the Central Digital Sex Crime Victim Support Center.

Regarding the material for which it had requested deletion from Google, the committee said it asked Google to remove the related posts on the site and Google search results related to the committee.

It is also pursuing international cooperation. The committee said it shared the case on Sept. 12 with INHOPE, the Global Online Safety Regulators Network (GOSRN) and the International Institute of Communications (IIC) and asked them to check whether similar cases had occurred in member countries and to identify response trends by country.

It also shared the information with the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which is cooperating in efforts to respond to digital sex crime information, and asked for cooperation on 대응.

The committee said it asked 12 overseas operators that are subject to its corrective requests, including Google, Meta Korea, X Korea and TikTok Korea, as well as content delivery network (CDN) provider Cloudflare, to establish systems to manage and protect the information.

The committee stressed that its corrective request information can include sensitive data such as personal details of digital sex crime victims as well as illegal and harmful content. It said systematic management measures are needed to prevent that information from being shared, distributed or disclosed to outside organisations.

Ko Kwang-heon (고광헌), the committee's chairman, said, "This is a very serious matter that has turned away a helping hand for victims of digital sex crimes." He added, "We will do our best with cooperating institutions and operators at home and abroad, including the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, to quickly resolve the situation and prevent further harm."