South KoreaAI regulation

Regulation Status

• South Korea has enacted a dedicated horizontal AI statute, the Basic Act on the Development of Artificial Intelligence and the Establishment of Trust (AI Basic Act), signed into law in January 2025 and in force since 22 January 2026; it takes a risk-based approach regulating high-impact AI with transparency and accountability duties, centred on the Ministry of Science and ICT, alongside sector laws such as the Intelligent Robots Act.
• South Korea is deeply engaged internationally, co-hosting the 2024 Seoul AI Summit and Declaration, leading military-AI (REAIM) and UN initiatives, operating an AI Safety Institute and signing numerous bilateral AI cooperation agreements.
• The privacy regulator (PIPC) is highly active, having amended the Personal Information Protection Act for automated decision-making and, through amendments promulgated in September 2026 and effective from 9 March 2027, created an AI-development exception allowing lawfully collected personal data to be used beyond its original purpose where public necessity exists and anonymised data is insufficient, subject to PIPC oversight, risk evaluation, disclosure and enhanced safeguards; it has also issued guidance on public data, synthetic data and generative AI, investigated and suspended DeepSeek, and pursued turnover-based fines of up to 10 percent for serious violations.
• South Korea has built dedicated criminal and sectoral rules, criminalising creation and possession of sexually explicit deepfakes (up to seven years' imprisonment) and restricting deepfake political ads, while the Fair Trade Commission studies the generative-AI market and copyright bodies work toward a fair-use-based framework for AI training.