South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT said on Wednesday it is recruiting organisations to participate in a "digital infrastructure diagnosis and improvement programme" that checks in advance for software defects in systems closely tied to people's daily lives.

The programme dispatches software experts from the Telecommunications Technology Association (TTA) to visit institutions or companies and diagnose system malfunctions and defects free of charge. Public and private systems closely tied to daily life, including transport, medical care and disaster management, are eligible for support.

Applicant organisations can choose areas for inspection from six items, including safety functions: software quality, source code, DBMS (DataBase Management System), WEB/WAS (web screen provision and data processing systems), and structure. They can receive improvement measures.

Public institutions and private companies seeking to participate must apply by email to TTA by May 22. Applications may close early if the overall support quota of 78 cases is filled. Diagnosis targets will be selected after comprehensively considering software safety relevance, the need for diagnosis and conditions for implementation.

Nam Cheol-gi (남철기), director general for software policy at the ministry, said, "The safety of digital infrastructure is a pillar that protects people's daily lives." He said he would take the lead in realising a reliable Digital Korea by removing potential risk factors in public and private systems in advance.