South Korea launches app to track stalkers in real time
South Korea let stalking victims watch offenders on a smartphone map as the Justice Ministry rolled out a real-time tracking app. The move followed a March killing despite an ankle monitor and police protection.
South Korea’s Justice Ministry put a stalking-tracking app in front of reporters at its central location tracking center on May 27 and set it for full use on June 24. The smartphone tool showed victims the location and direction of movement of offenders already wearing electronic ankle monitors.
The rollout came after a woman in her 20s was killed by her stalker in March 2026 even though he wore an ankle monitor and she had police protection. That case sharpened criticism that earlier safeguards were not enough, and it followed a December 2025 revision approved by South Korea’s National Assembly that let victims view the exact real-time location of stalkers under electronic monitoring if they got too close. Authorities also planned to link the app with the National Police Agency’s 112 emergency system so responding officers could see an offender’s movements in real time.
The ministry’s move built on a longer political response to the 2022 Sindang Station murder, when a Seoul Metro worker in her 20s was killed by Jeon Joo-hwan, a former colleague who had stalked her. The case became a symbol of enforcement failures in South Korea, where restraining orders and prior warnings often did not stop attacks. Justice Ministry officials call electronic monitoring a 24/7 GPS-based supervision system used for high-risk offenders, including stalking offenders.
The new app turned that system outward, giving victims a live view of an offender’s position rather than leaving the information only in police hands.
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