When a stalking criminal with an electronic device approaches, a map containing the perpetrator’s real-time movement path appears on the victim’s smartphone screen. The probation officer in charge immediately contacts the victim and goes to the scene to secure the identity of the offender. This is how the Ministry of Justice’s ‘Stalking Offender Location Notification Service’, which will be implemented from the 24th of next month, works.
On the 27th, alarm notifications were constantly ringing on the monitor in the control room at the Location Tracking Central Control Center in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul. The control center monitors violations of the access ban and outing ban by those wearing location tracking electronic devices (electronic anklets) 24 hours a day. The Ministry of Justice operates a system where, when an offender wearing an electronic anklet approaches the victim within a maximum of 2 km, the victim is notified of the approach and a probation officer or police is dispatched if necessary. However, there was a limitation in that it did not provide the exact location and movement route of the perpetrator.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Justice revised the Electronic Device Attachment Act at the end of last year and established a service that shows the offender’s real-time location and direction of movement on the victim’s cell phone when the offender approaches the victim within a certain distance. Victims can obtain this information through the application (app), and can also check the location of the nearest probation office or police station and the contact information of the person in charge.
The app uses the mobile phone’s location information system (GPS) to determine the victim’s location if the victim agrees to install the app. An official from the Ministry of Justice explained, “The victim’s location information is immediately discarded upon the end of the situation (violation of access ban, etc.).”
The Ministry of Justice is also conducting a project to link the Ministry of Justice’s location tracking system and the National Police Agency’s 112 system to protect victims.
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