Hankook Ilbo: “[Exclusive]…Welfare Ministry agency (NCRC) ‘plays dumb’ after losing adoption records.”
Translation via ChatGPT.
Some BOLDS and Blue highlighting ours.
See the original Korean article for images / graphics.
*Please note that what the article refers to as the “Child Rights Guarantee Agency” is NCRC (National Center for the Rights of the Child).
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Please see related:
MBC Video Highlights The Failures of NCRC In Preserving Orphanage Records
(Originally posted to Paperslip on January 14th, 2025).
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By Wondara Won
Published: March 11, 2026, 4:31 AM
“A government-affiliated agency (NCRC) under South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare lost external hard drives containing sensitive personal information—including resident registration numbers—of around 100,000 adopted children and their families, yet failed to notify affected individuals or take follow-up measures for nearly two years.
Critics say the government strictly punishes private companies for personal data breaches but is lenient when government institutions mishandle data.
External drives with adoptees’ ID numbers “missing”
According to reporting by Hankook Ilbo on March 10, the Child Rights Guarantee Agency (NCRC), a public organization under the Ministry of Health and Welfare, lost 14 of the 26 original external hard drives containing digitized adoption records.
Since 2013, the agency had run a project to scan and digitize adoption records that had previously been kept on paper by child welfare facilities and adoption agencies.
More than half of the original drives created between 2013 and 2019 have now gone missing.
The drives contained sensitive data such as:
Names of adopted children
Dates of birth and ages
Resident registration numbers (13-digit national IDs)
Biological parents’ ID numbers and addresses
Family relationships
Adoptive parents’ information
The records cover children adopted domestically and internationally from after the Korean War through 2019.
A 2019 audit report of the digitization project obtained by the newspaper shows files including:
The name and national ID number of a child born in 2017
A resident registry document of biological parents who placed a child for adoption in 2004
Altogether, the drives contained 153,615 adoption records from 75 institutions.
Loss discovered in 2024 — but no clear timeline
The disappearance of the original drives was discovered in November 2024, about 1 year and 4 months ago, during an audit by the Ministry of Health and Welfare following questions raised during a parliamentary inspection.
However, the exact time when the drives went missing is still unknown.
Under the contract for the digitization project, the external drives containing the results were supposed to be submitted to the commissioning agency when the project ended.
Even the agency itself appeared uncertain about the drives’ status.
During a parliamentary inspection in October 2024, the agency’s president initially said he believed the drives existed, but later admitted:
“We cannot confirm which external drives contain the originals.”
In a January interview with the investigative TV program PD Notebook, he said:
“We have copies now, but no one can confirm whether they match the originals, because there’s nothing to compare them with.”
Passwords written on Post-it notes
The agency did not notify affected individuals, despite being aware of the loss.
Under South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act, once a data controller recognizes a leak—including theft or loss—it must immediately notify the affected individuals.
Authorities waited more than a year without issuing such notices.
Security management was also reportedly poor:
Some external drives had no passwords
Others had passwords written on Post-it notes attached to the drive
The drives were stored in a cardboard box under an employee’s desk
There were no access logs or inventory records
Because of this, officials cannot rule out the possibility that the information was leaked externally.
Suspicions of internal misuse
During a parliamentary audit in October 2024, lawmaker Lee Soo-jin raised allegations that:
An employee of the agency had created a Facebook page using the agency’s name
The page promoted family-finding services for adoptees with a donation button
There were rumors the employee left the country with an external drive containing the data
The Ministry of Health and Welfare was asked to investigate but no follow-up report has been released.
Government accused of double standards
Critics say the government punishes private companies far more strictly.
For example, e-commerce giant Coupang was fined 1.599 billion won (about $1.2 million) after it delayed notifying authorities and users of a personal data leak by just four days in 2021.
In contrast:
The government agency delayed notification for over a year
No disciplinary review has yet been completed for responsible officials.
Not the first delayed disclosure
This is not the agency’s first delayed response.
In August 2024, it discovered that an external drive containing information about children living in welfare facilities had been lost—but only announced it months later.
The agency claimed the delay occurred because the Personal Information Protection Commission was investigating, but the commission responded:
“When a data breach is recognized, notification should be immediate. Investigations actually encourage prompt disclosure.”
Confusing explanation from authorities
When questioned by Hankook Ilbo, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said:
“We need time to determine the facts.”
An agency official said they assume the drives they still have are the originals, but verification may require external forensic analysis.
Adoption records are vital to adoptees
For adoptees, these records are often the only link to their biological families.
Although the agency says copies exist and family searches may still be possible, experts warn that the authenticity of records may now be difficult to verify.
Many records also come from facilities that have already closed, making re-digitization difficult.”
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Funny, we recall when certain Korean Adoptee activists were reassuring us and other Korean Adoptees that “they would take care of everything, and that everything would be just fine!” when ALL former Korean Adoption Agency files moved to NCRC in July 2025.
Good thing we knew this was bullsh*t, and spent 15 solid months WARNING KSS Adoptees and ALL Adoptees about the (then) coming transfer of ALL former Korean Adoption Agency files to NCRC.
Please see related:
The Paper Trail of Tears.