On February 12, 2022, I noticed an article which says that in Korea, the recording of conversations between presidential candidates and related persons took place in normal. When we remember the past that the transcripts were treated with great importance in the past impeachment cases of the president, the public's interpretation of the recording files and the contents could be very important.
When non-Koreans see these Korean articles, they may ask, “Do Koreans record all the time?” Unfortunately, it is becoming such a situation. Foreigners who have called government offices in Korea may hear that the pre-call message that always saying is “Please refrain from using abusive language towards the employees. They are a member of another family. Please note that this call may be recorded under Occupational Safety and Health Act.” In other words, this means that when you call a government office, what you say is automatically recorded for future disputes.
Not only government offices but also the private sector in Korea are using this technology more and more. Recently, beyond recording, STT (speech to text) technology has been developed in which the recorded content is directly arranged in writing through artificial intelligence. The work that was done in the stenographic office in the past can be done freely by ordinary people. Regarding this generalized phenomenon, there are those who insist that it is the best defense tool to protect them. However, there are those who are against this opinion saying it is an excessive restriction on freedom of expression.
In the past, Korean courts judged that there was no legal problem if the person who recorded the recording was a participant in the conversation according to the Communications Secret Protection Act, regardless of the other party's recognition, and the recording could be used as evidence in the lawsuit. This past judgment might make some situations that the person who didn't record could be lost in the case. Therefore, the lawyers in Korea recommend to their clients to record as they can when they expect some disputes between their counterparts. In many cases, audio files and transcripts were used as the decisive materials and usually submitted at the end of a lawsuit. I have also seen cases where it was submitted as a hidden card before the closing date of pleadings.
I don't know if it's always good to have these kinds of recording files on a daily basis. It seems to mean that I don't trust the person I'm talking to. Some say that this is evidence of the fact that Korea is gradually becoming a distrustful society. It's a sad reality. It would be more desirable to have a society where people can trust each other regardless of a recording file.
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