South Korea will require facial recognition for new mobile phone subscriptions starting in July, according to idtechwire.com. The facial verification mandate requires telecommunications operators to match a customer's face against their official identification photo during the sign-up process. The policy targets budget carriers because their online registration process is the primary method used for illegal phone registration.

The facial recognition policy is aimed at combating voice-phishing networks and fraudsters registering phones under stolen or borrowed identities. Data reported by idtechwire.com indicates that budget carriers accounted for 92.3 percent of seized illegal phones in 2024, up from 76.5 percent in 2022.

Foreign residents are initially excluded from the facial recognition mandate, according to idtechwire.com. The exclusion is due to the scanning system not yet being linked with separate foreign-identity databases.