E-mail eavesdropping increases by 222 Pct. last year

Wiretapping by investigation agencies of personal computer (PC) communications, including Internet e-mail, is sharply increasing, a government tally showed Thursday. PC communication and Internet e-mail service providers were found to have offered prosecutors and police officials access to such communications at their request.

Unveiled by the Ministry of Information and Communication, the tally showed that service providers handed over materials to investigators in a total of 3,465 cases last year, up 222.3 percent from 1999.

The rate of increase was more than twice as high as the growth in the number of PC communication subscribers, which reached 105.5 percent last year.

The supply of communication materials decreased slightly in the latter half of last year due to increased restrictions, but the number of cases still totaled 160,485, up 3.9 percent from 1999.

Jung Wi-Yong viyonz@donga.com