South Korea to launch monitoring of passports for children born abroad — Korea Herald

South Korea will launch a monitoring system on Friday for temporary passports issued to children born abroad. Authorities want to prevent the receipt of child-related social benefits in cases where a child stays outside the country for 90 days or longer, Korea Herald reports.

Data exchange between agencies

South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare is creating the system jointly with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Justice. Population registration data are to be linked with the passport information system so that authorities can more accurately track border-crossing data for children born abroad.

Child-related benefits are suspended if a child stays in another country for 90 days or more. The temporary passports of such children may contain only a name and date of birth, without a resident registration number. As a result, these documents were previously not linked to other government systems.

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Improper payments identified

Previously, the government checked border-crossing information manually: it received copies of temporary passports and compared them with the population registration system. Such checks were conducted once a year and identified hundreds of cases of payments continuing after eligibility had been suspended.

In 2024, the ministry checked data on 26,433 temporary passports of children born outside South Korea. It found that 605 children continued receiving benefits, although their eligibility should have been suspended due to prolonged stays abroad.

Starting Friday, families applying for benefits must inform authorities whether a child has a temporary passport. This will allow officials to enter the relevant data into the social welfare system.