Adoption scandal in Korea – the adoption authority did not preserve adopted people’s background information

10 Years Later, Still Fake?… Ministry of Welfare Begins Audit of Adoption Record Computerization Project

The Child Rights Protection Agency (formerly the Central Adoption Agency) under the Ministry of Health and Welfare has been carrying out the ‘Adoption Records Computerization Project’ since 2013 to collect and computerize adoption records scattered across private organizations. The purpose is to permanently preserve adoption records in the private sector by integrating them into a public institution and to increase adoptees’ access to information.

However, suspicions have been raised that this project, which has been in progress for about 10 years, has been managed poorly. It is said that everything from basic record scanning to the process of uploading data to the online system has been handled poorly. It has been confirmed that the Ministry of Health and Welfare has also identified the related issues and has begun an audit of the Child Rights Protection Agency regarding the ‘Adoption Records Computerization Project’. Previously, Newstapa conducted the <Overseas Adoption and Money> project to identify the structural problems of overseas adoption in the 1970s and 1980s. Through this, we have reported in depth on cases of overseas adoptees who were unable to find their information due to the barriers of adoption agencies. The adoption records computerization project of the National Institute of Child Rights, a public institution, was started to help adoptees find their roots, but it is being revealed that it has been carried out haphazardly. Newstapa plans to track and report on the reality of the adoption records computerization project that has been carried out for the past 10 years. Adoption records computerization project 10 years… Suspicions finally surface Adoptees usually do not stay in one institution after being separated from their original families and adopted into another family. In the case of overseas adoptees in the 1970s and 1980s, they were admitted to child welfare facilities that were formerly called orphanages, and then sent to institutions that arranged overseas adoptions such as Holt Children’s Welfare Association, where they were finally adopted. This means that there can be records from multiple institutions for one child. Welfare facilities and adoption agencies each create records in different forms. This is one of the reasons why adoptees have difficulty finding their records. The adoption records computerization project was implemented for the purpose of integrating and managing records scattered across individual facilities. This project was first started at the Central Adoption Center in 2013. After the Central Adoption Center was integrated into the Child Rights Protection Center in 2019, it was run by the Child Rights Protection Center for a total of 10 years until 2022.

Adoption records containing personal information about children, circumstances of admission to facilities, and information about biological parents are more than just records to overseas adoptees. Adoptees said, “If there was a problem, the Child Rights Protection Agency should take responsibility,” and “(the agency) should quickly step forward and explain (what happened).” <Overseas Adoption and Money> Project Collection.

From 2013 to 2022, the Child Rights Protection Center computerized the records of 86 closed child welfare facilities for 10 years. The project was not implemented in 2023 and 2024. Starting next year, records from adoption agencies such as Holt Children’s Welfare Association and the Korea Social Service Association will be mandatorily transferred to the center.

However, ahead of the mandatory transfer of records from adoption agencies such as Holt Children’s Welfare Association next year, suspicions have been raised that there were overall deficiencies in the adoption record computerization project that the Child Rights Protection Center had been conducting for 10 years. It is pointed out that there were overall problems with the project, such as scanning errors, non-compliance with guidelines, and insufficient system uploads. Newstapa confirmed the details through the testimonies of multiple relevant parties. This is the first time that the problems with the adoption record computerization project that was conducted for 10 years have been reported by the media.

Why scan a blank sheet?… There is no original, and it is unclear whether it was installed in the system.

First, there is the suspicion that blank sheets were scanned. The adoption record computerization project is largely divided into three stages: ‘scanning’, ‘data construction’, and ‘uploading’. The first step of the project is scanning, which involves scanning each original record held by each institution and creating a digital image file.

Since it is scanning records, it is natural that the pages with content should be scanned, but there are rumors inside and outside the Child Rights Protection Center that a large number of blank pages with no content are included. An official from the Ministry of Health and Welfare also said, “We confirmed that blank pages were scanned.” The adoption record computerization project determines the project budget based on quantitative indicators of how many cases and how many pages of records were scanned and computerized each year. The project cost is determined based on how many pages were scanned. If the project cost was executed by calculating the number of scanned pages despite the inclusion of such a large number of blank pages, it would be an unfair budget execution. An official from the Child Rights Protection Center said, “(Scanning blank pages) is ultimately a false work, and it must have been done that way to meet the quantity.” A Ministry of Health and Welfare official also said, “If blank paper scanning is included as a task, it could be a problem, so we need to look into the related regulations.”

In some years, these blank scans reportedly account for half of all scanned files. A Child Rights Protection Center official told Newstapa, “There are too many blank scans. There is no content information at all.” Another official also testified, “In 2020 and 2021, almost half were blank.”

The adoption records computerization project was carried out as a service project of the Child Rights Protection Agency. It was confirmed that the service provider who actually carried out the project did not follow the guidelines that had to be followed when scanning the adoption records. What makes the problem more complicated is that the Child Rights Protection Agency rarely secured the original records while carrying out this project. This is why it is not easy to compare the scanned copies with the originals now. Considering the possibility of original records being lost due to natural disasters or insufficient storage, it would be best for the Child Rights Protection Center to first secure the original records and then scan and computerize them. However, the current adoption record computerization project did not proceed in that way. Because there is no legal provision requiring child welfare facilities to transfer original records to the Child Rights Protection Center, the Center did not secure most of the originals.

For example, ‘page marking’. Page marking is a device that marks the page numbers, such as 001, 002, at the bottom of a record to check whether the number of pages in the original and the scanned copy match and whether there are any missing pages, and whether the original is authentic. The National Archives of Korea’s records management guidelines clearly state the obligation to mark pages. The request for proposals for services commissioned by the Child Rights Protection Agency in 2014 also clearly states that these database construction guidelines must be followed. However, according to the testimonies of those involved, page marking was never done during the entire 10-year period that the project was carried out. According to

Newstapa’s information disclosure request, out of the 86 facilities where the Child Rights Protection Agency implemented computerization, only 5 institutions have the originals. The remaining 81 institutions do not have original records and only have scanned copies. However, there have been rumors inside and outside the Child Rights Protection Agency that they cannot check whether the scanned copy is exactly the same as the original because page marking is not done. Officials contacted by Newstapa unanimously stated, “The biggest error is the omission of the face marking. We cannot confirm whether this document has been forged or tampered with,” and “There is no accurate data to confirm its authenticity.”

“Data upload is also a mess… People’s names and information do not match”

After scanning the records, the next step is to extract data values ​​from the records. This project calls this ‘metadata’. It consists of a total of 51 items, including the child’s name, date of birth, and biological parents’ names. Once the metadata is built in this way, the scanned file and metadata must be loaded into the Adoption Information Management System ( ACMS ).

ACMS is an online system that the Child Rights Protection Center and adoption agencies can access and utilize together, and is, in its original sense, loaded with adoption-related records. In this way, when an adoptee files a request for information disclosure, the Child Rights Protection Center or adoption agency ACMS can be used to provide information to the adoptee.

However, suspicions are being raised that the ACMS system upload was not done properly. In an internal meeting minutes document of the Child Rights Protection Center in 2021 obtained by Newstapa, the term ‘unloaded data’ appears. The title of this meeting minutes is ‘ Report on ACMS upload related to the computerization of adoption records’. It discusses a plan to upload data built through the computerization project to ACMS .

The minutes state that ‘data built in 2020’ and ‘ data built from 2018 to 2020’ were not loaded. This means that as of 2021, adoption record data secured in the previous year, that is, 2020, and adoption consultation record data secured between 2018 and 2020 were not loaded into the system. There are talks both inside

and outside the Child Rights Protection Center that not only the period stated in the minutes, but also data from an earlier period were not properly loaded into the ACMS system. Later, in 2021, the Child Rights Protection Center uploaded the data to the system, but it is still unclear whether it was 100% uploaded, and because it was done several years later at once, the information on children in the ACMS system was mixed up or the same child was uploaded repeatedly, resulting in 7 or 8 names for the same child.

An official from the Child Rights Protection Center said, ”When searching ( for children in ACMS ), there were many more cases where it was not uploaded, and there were many cases of the same person. “The data was a mess,” he said, adding, “there were even cases where the ACMS system searched for information that was not about that person.” Another official said, “We still can’t confirm whether everything has been uploaded.” The Child Rights Protection Agency has spent at least 1.8 billion won on the adoption record computerization project from 2013 to 2022.

Adoptees were outraged that their records might not have been properly managed. “Records are us. That’s all we have,” said Han Boon-young, co-chair of the Danish Korean Rights Group ( DKRG ), a group of Danish Korean adoptees. “If the records are inaccurate, manipulated, or incomplete, then something is missing. We have no other clues and no one to ask. So adoption records are a part of the individual adoptee.” Peter Müller, co-chair of DKRG , said , “The Child Rights Center did this project not once, but for 10 years. Then there would have been follow-up measures and they would have known something was wrong.” “I don’t know how they handle this in Korea. The Child Rights Center really needs to take responsibility. They need to step forward and explain.” It has not yet been revealed exactly why the computerization of adoption records, which are everything to adoptees, was carried out so poorly and sloppily. An official from Company A, which was the service provider for this project, told reporters, “Since the facilities are not legally required to submit original records, (we) only scanned them on site,” and “We received on-site inspections while scanning, and the metadata was also inspected and uploaded to ACMS .” The Child Rights Protection Center and the Ministry of Health and Welfare are both aware of the recent problems with the adoption record computerization project and are investigating the facts. The Child Rights Protection Center said, “We are closely checking and investigating the 10-year project content. If any insufficiencies are found, we will take appropriate measures.”

Han continued, “The Children’s Rights Commission understood how important this was. That’s why they promised us [to preserve the records] and said they did it,” and “But the Children’s Rights Commission seems to have been lazy, careless, and indifferent.” Peter Müller, co- The Child Rights Protection Agency and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which belatedly began an inspection, Regarding the suspicion of blank-paper scanning, he said, “I didn’t know (that happened), and if that had happened, the Protection Agency would have contacted me, but they didn’t contact me later.” He added, “If there was a mistake, I will fix it.” The The Ministry of Health and Welfare recently conducted an on-site investigation of the Child Rights Protection Center. As a result, some problems were identified and an audit of the entire adoption record computerization project is underway. A Ministry of Welfare official said, “If any violations of specific regulations are found, we will take necessary measures.”

Background info. from 2019

Most Korean adoptees stayed at a facility/institution before they were adopted. It can be an orphanage or hospital or even a private institution. Many of us are searching for our roots and/or are interested in learning more about our history. In order to be able to do so, we need to be able to find our records and access information about the facilities and people who handled and are handling overseas adoptions from Korea.

In October 2017 KAS (now NCRC) claimed that they know of 273 child welfare facilities still in business in Korea. However, according to a child welfare facilities list from 1978 published by the Ministry of Health and Welfare 420 such facilities were up and running. KAS stated that that does not mean that the other 147 facilities are have closed down. But KAS cannot tell SKAN what happened with these facilities.

Many questions remain such as

• why can’t adoptees get the list of these 420 facilities? Why is that list such a secret?
• does NCRC (formerly known as KAS) have a strategy to access paperwork from orphanages run by non-Koreans?
• why is the list from 1978 the most suitable list to use? Are there no list from other years?

How many documents do NCRC (KAS) have?

It is unclear to how many documents NCRC really have and how many adoptees are in these records. In Dec. 2017 KAS annonunced that they had preserved 58,000 records from 39 facilities. However, only 37 institutions are on the list KAS released. KAS claims that they have information about 39,348 children, but only 9,669 are on the list released by KAS.

There is something seriously wrong here as the Korean government has documented over 160,000 overseas adoptions. That means that there are many more documents need to be found from many, many orphanages etc.

What is SKAN doing?

We have contacted MFoF, the Swedish authority responsible for adoption issues, and asked them to request a list of all closed orphanages as well as asking KAS where the documents are now. In May 2017, we asked MFoF to ask about the orphanages on the list below. On 24th of August KAS still had not replied to MFoF’s request.

On 24th of Sep, SKAN asked MFoF to request a list of all the names of the 420 closed facilities. However, MFoF has refused to do so.

Adoption documents to be digitized

In december 2014, Korea Herald published an the article Adoption documents to be digitalized.  From that article we learnt that

”A government agency [KAS] is digitizing some 35,000 documents related to transnational adoptions that occurred in South Korea since the 1950s, in its effort to help Korean overseas adoptees find their birth parents.”

”According to the state-run organization [KAS], the number of adoption agencies in Korea dropped from about 400 in 1978 to 280 last year. This means about 120 agencies closed down since the late 1970s.”

Where are the documents from the other 100 agencies?

According to Korea Herald KAS states that about 120 agencies have closed down. At the same time KAS’ list of scanned documents only consists of about 20 facilities.

You can access the list through the Excel sheet – the following link List-of-facilities-institutions-190926