PROTECTION CONVERGENCE

Korea has seen a constant increase in highly sophisticated, intelligent, and advanced industrial spying crimes, such as leakage of state-of-art technologies, infringement upon intellectual properties, etc., as industrial tech-nology competitiveness is strengthening. State-led control is being pushed forward at policy level to prevent such industrial spying crimes. For that, legal grounds need to be clarified for authority, mechanism, and obligations of competent government ministries as the leader of industrial security protection at national level. Currently, laws have already been enacted to control industrial technology leakage, infringement of business secret and others in Korea. This study was intended to examine trends of regulatory legislation related to industrial security, such as leak-age of industrial technologies and infringement upon business secrets, in Korea and to discuss implications asso-ciated with industrial security policies and system nationwide by identifying characteristics of regulatory legisla-tion on industrial security. In Korea, regulatory laws pertaining to industrial security is legalized with separate laws such as ‘Act on Pre-vention of Leakage and Protection of Industrial Technology’, ‘Act on Prevention of Unfair Competition and Pro-tection of Business Secret’, ‘Act on Protection of Small Medium Company’s Technology, etc. Thus, applicable laws may vary, depending on cases. Moreover, laws need to be applied based on individual statutes under the status of special laws and interpretation needed to be made in consideration of complementary application of statutes as general laws. Regulatory legislation on industrial security in Korea involves appointment of concerned management and supervision organizations, along with clarification of responsibilities of state and government for industrial secu-rity despite different entities covered by individual laws. Private corporate business secrets, as well as nation’s key technologies, are protected, controlled, and supported under the leadership of state. Industrial security system in Korea emphasizes punishment for leakage and infringement which are compo-nents of specific crimes, with management and supervision from the standpoint of ex post facto response to leakage of technologies and infringement upon secrets based on government policies. However, it is more im-portant to create an environment conducive to prevention of such leakage and infringement in the realm of private sector, particularly for small and medium companies. That calls for specialization related to industrial security mechanism. Therefore, it should be considered to develop professional manpower with concerned expertise and imple-mentation capabilities and to introduce national certification system necessary for increasing related public con-fidence.

Private security industry is a promising industry of the 21st century to overcome limitation of public police and implement the ideology of efficient government. Above all, government’s legal and institutional support and interest are indispensable to help private security take root as the best security service industry promoting safety of the public. To keep pace with development of private security industry, legal ground has been laid for private security business in Korea with enactment of Security Services Industry Act. In this context, this study was intended to examine major aspects of Security Business Act and private security system, the positive legal basis for private security, and present development measures to highlight purpose of promoting ‘benefits and protection of law’ for the public as the subject of security service, along with the measures to mitigate inadequacy of current private security in Korea. To pursue public benefits of crime prevention based on publicness of private security, the role of private secu-rity is inevitable. For that, measures that can ensure strong public confidence should be explored. In other words, the quality of private security, which forms an axis of collaborative security as co-producer of security service comparable to that of the police, should be improved to accommodate the demand of citizens, and furthermore, institutional improvement measures should be mapped out for autonomous implementation. For that, qualification system should be enforced for members, along with certification system for security business. Moreover, management assessment should be carried out first to assure fairness of government sup-port. Unit price adjustment and resultant labor cost-cutting based on market principle may hinder provision of high quality security service. To resolve such problems, government support is needed desperately. Future amendment of Security Business Act should be made in such a way that security business works are specified clearly, so that duties and authority of security personnel can be regulated specifically. Through that, publicness needs to be strengthened further. In addition, discussion on enactment of regulations is needed to seek harmony between publicness and cor-porate characteristics, along with independence of private security as subject providing collaborative security service.