Is it legal to recording conversations in South Korea?
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Quick answer
Legal position
Current starter summary
Recording conversations in South Korea is not a flat yes or no answer from the official sources checked here. The Communications Privacy Protection Act clearly prohibits recording or listening to non-public conversations between other people without lawful authority.
Conditions
What would need to be true
Do not record non-public conversations between other people unless a specific legal basis applies.
Exceptions
Known carve-outs or edge cases
The checked official sources do not resolve every participant-recording scenario into one simple national answer.
Penalties
Penalty snapshot
The official court material cites Article 16 as allowing up to ten years imprisonment and up to five years qualification suspension for prohibited recording or listening.
Enforcement
How this may be enforced
Criminal enforcement follows the Communications Privacy Protection Act and related court interpretation.
More rules in South Korea
Use the reset build to keep country pages useful even before every row is fully sourced.
gamble online
Online gambling in South Korea is not a flat yes or no answer from the official sources checked here. The Criminal Act punishes gambling and habitual gambling, but specific state-authorized gambling products are treated separately by statute.
buy a pepper spray
South Korea does not treat gas sprayers and electric shock devices as ordinary unrestricted consumer items. The weapons safety law requires a possession permit for gas sprayers and electric shock machines unless a statutory exception applies.
buy a stun gun
South Korea does not treat gas sprayers and electric shock devices as ordinary unrestricted consumer items. The weapons safety law requires a possession permit for gas sprayers and electric shock machines unless a statutory exception applies.
buy a taser
South Korea does not treat gas sprayers and electric shock devices as ordinary unrestricted consumer items. The weapons safety law requires a possession permit for gas sprayers and electric shock machines unless a statutory exception applies.
Compare this activity in other countries
This makes the rule page useful for comparison without creating a second data source.
Australia
Australia does not have a single clean national yes or no answer for recording conversations because relevant surveillance and monitoring rules differ across states and territories and the federal privacy guidance points people to those local laws.
Austria
Austria criminalises the unauthorised recording of non-public speech. The answer therefore depends on whether the conversation is public, whether consent exists, and whether another legal authority applies.
Canada
Recording a private conversation in Canada is not a clean yes or no because the Criminal Code bans knowingly intercepting a private communication unless one of the parties consents or another exception applies.
Denmark
Official Danish sources say secret listening to or recording conversations between other people is prohibited, while recordings that process personal data must satisfy data-protection rules on necessity, lawful basis, information and storage.
About this row
Canonical dataset status
Official sources
Source URLs attached
Reset rule
Why the page is intentionally light
The new site should show a stable layout, a stable route, and clear source slots before the dataset is scaled up again. That keeps management simple and makes later official-source population safer.