South Korea's rate of full disclosure of information in response to requests for disclosure fell to an all-time low last year

The government's rate of full disclosure in response to information disclosure requests, which was introduced to guarantee the public's right to know, hit a record low of 74% last year.
The Freedom of Information Act, enacted in 1998, allows requests for disclosure of information held or managed by public institutions.
The bill was established to determine the basis for the obligation, guarantee the public's right to know, and ensure transparency in the administration of state affairs.
According to the National Diet, last year, central and local government agencies received approximately 1,842,000 requests for information disclosure, of which 1,842,000 were actually filed, excluding cases where the requesters withdrew their requests or the requests were handled as complaints.
The total number of requests for disclosure of information was approximately 1,078,000. Of these, only 74% (799,366) were fully disclosed, the lowest since the law was introduced.
The full disclosure rate has fluctuated from 83% in 1998 to 86% in 2000, 80% in 2005, 81% in 2010, and 86% in 2015.
It then rose to the 70% range for the first time in 2021 (78%), and hit an all-time low of 74% last year. In contrast, the partial disclosure rate has steadily increased from 10% in 2015 to 20% last year.
The rate of full disclosure by central government agencies last year was 64%, 16 percentage points lower than that of local governments (80%). The central agency with the lowest rate of full disclosure last year was the National Security Council, with 13 requests for disclosure.
Not a single one of these was made public, making the total 0%. This was followed by the Presidential Security Service (17.6%), the Space Agency (25.0%), the May 18 Democratization Movement Truth Investigative Commission (30.8%), and the Presidential
The next most notable were the Secretariat of the Secretary-General (35.9%), the Truth Commission on Military Fatal Accidents (47.5%), the Ministry of Strategy and Finance (49.9%), and the Ministry of National Defense (52.8%).
The central agencies with the highest disclosure rates were the Unification Advisory Council Secretariat (97.1%), the National Heritage Administration (93.7%), and the National Diet Library (94.2%).
The agency that received the most requests for information disclosure was the National Police Agency (approximately 267,000 requests), followed by the Military Manpower Administration (90.1%).
Yang said, "The information disclosure rate has fallen to an all-time low, going against the original purpose of the information disclosure request system. For responsible national governance, we need transparent information disclosure."
In response, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety stated, "Recently, we have been receiving emergency 119 reports, fire investigation reports, complaints, and CCTV footage related to individual incidents and accidents.
"We are seeing an increase in requests for disclosure of information, such as video footage. In many cases, these requests contain personal information about other people, and most of them are handled with partial disclosure (rather than full disclosure)," he explained.