"Is it you?" Your identity will be revealed every time you report... Terrible times

<Anchor>

Today (24th) Part 2 will start with the story of a public interest reporter who told us this, I want to say that if someone said it.

A university professor filed a whistleblower claiming to reveal the corruption of his school.

I also informed the Ministry of Education, the Civil Rights Commission, and the police, but whenever I reported what happened, my identity was exposed and the details of the report became known, and I had a hard time.

First, let's look at reporter Im Sang-beom's report and continue talking.

<Reporter>

In May of last year, Professor Kyung-Han Kim secretly visited the Ministry of Education by collecting materials related to corruption of the school foundation.

Shortly thereafter, the school's awareness cycle began.

When asked if their status was exposed, the Ministry of Education pushed them to go to the rights and interests if they couldn't.

When the public interest report was filed again to the rights and interests committee, the school started to harass in earnest.

[Professor Gyeong-Han Kim: About mental pain and distress...

It was a very difficult process...

.] When

I questioned the person in charge of Kwon Ik-Com, it was said that it wasn't intentional.

[At the time, Kwon Ik-Chief Officer: While talking with the people working there, I don't know if I said it was actually unnecessary...

I'm really sorry.

I didn't mean to do that...

.]

This wasn't the end.

In July of this year, the school officials were sued to the police, but the police handed over the complaint, unintentionally handing over the contents and process of the report.

In order to protect himself from the school's relentless threat of destruction, Professor Kim applied for protection of public interest reporters in January of this year.

However, the KFTC took eight months for reasons such as finding out the facts, and only this week took measures to stop penalties on the school side.

Normal life was already broken.

[Professor Gyeong-Han Kim: I started to make a better society, but in such a difficult situation, it is difficult to tell (to others) to report the public interest...

.] The number

of cases in which the status of public interest reporters was exposed has been confirmed by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea in 13 cases since 2014.

They were mainly public officials, and even though they were clearly violating their obligations to secure confidentiality, they were punished only with admonition or caution.

<Anchor>

Reporter Lim Sang-beom who covered this content is here.

[Reporter Sangbeom Lim: Unfortunately, the Kwon Ik Committee has been very stingy in protecting reporters.

That's because it has been recognized only if it meets the constitutional and then relevant legal requirements.

Of the 192 protection applications received in the last 5 years, only 45 cases, which are less than a quarter, have been reinstated or taken to stop disadvantages.]

[Reporter Sangbeom Lim: As a result of the interviews, it was found that there were not many problems to use as an alternative.

Officially, it is guaranteed to be anonymous, but there are many requests from these organizations and companies for the name of the reporter in the background, and it is difficult for a consignment company, which is located in Eul, to reject this.

I met an official from a consignment company and heard the facts.]

<Reporter> This

is an internal reporting site of a public institution that a consignment company acts on behalf of.

It is known that non-real name processing is done so that the agency cannot know who reported it.

Really?

I met an official from a consignment company.

Confidentially, reporters are sometimes exposed due to mistakes or carelessness.

[Responsible for the company consigned to the report window: I delete the contents by hand.

Personal information...

Because that's what people do, there can be mistakes...

.]

The bigger problem is that if an agency secretly asks for the name of the reporter, it is not easy for the agency with the consignment contract to reject it.

[Responsible for the company consigned to the report window: This is also a business, so it is difficult to reject it.

Because it's one way to keep the contract...

.] In

fact, it is known that last year, the Kwon Ik Committee conducted a full survey of consignment companies and confirmed 10 cases of identity exposure.

There are 130 public institutions that outsource internal reporting to external companies each year.

Experts point out that it is necessary to make up for the loopholes in the external consignment reporting system, even by expanding the reporting system for non-real names through lawyers.

(Video coverage: Lee Jae-young · Seol Min-hwan, Video editing: Park Jin-hoon, Jeon Min-gyu)