IN Brief:
- A new Criminal Act offence covers national-secret collection or transfer carried out for foreign countries or equivalent organisations.
- Article 98-2 takes effect on 13 September 2026 and carries a determinate prison sentence of at least three years.
- Semiconductor technology is a major enforcement concern after South Korean police identified 33 overseas technology-leak cases during 2025.
South Korea’s amended Criminal Act takes effect on 13 September, creating a specific espionage offence for obtaining or transferring national secrets on behalf of foreign countries or equivalent organisations.
The change broadens a criminal regime that previously centred its principal espionage provision on activity for an enemy state, a category associated in practice primarily with North Korea. A new Article 98-2 now addresses conduct carried out for other foreign countries and qualifying organisations.
The provision covers detecting, collecting, disclosing, delivering, or mediating national secrets under the direction, instigation, or other communication of a foreign entity, as well as assisting those acts. The statutory sentence under Article 98-2 is determinate imprisonment for at least three years.
South Korea promulgated the amendment on 12 March, giving government bodies and industry six months before commencement. Related provisions governing attempts, preparation, conspiracy, incitement, and propaganda were also amended to incorporate the new foreign-entity offence.
The expansion arrives amid heightened concern over semiconductor technology leakage. Korean police identified 33 cases involving technology leaking overseas during 2025, according to figures reported by the Financial Times, with semiconductors the most frequently targeted sector.
Those risks extend beyond the country’s largest memory manufacturers. Semiconductor production depends on equipment suppliers, materials companies, packaging specialists, design businesses, engineering contractors, and other smaller companies that can hold detailed process information without the security resources available to large conglomerates.
A modern fabrication process contains knowledge that is difficult to separate neatly into individual intellectual-property files. Recipes, equipment settings, defect-control procedures, process sequences, layout information, supplier specifications, and practical manufacturing experience can collectively determine whether a process operates reliably at commercial yield.
That makes technology protection partly a cyber-security problem but not exclusively one. Sensitive information can leave a company through copied files and compromised accounts, but also through former employees, printed documentation, supplier records, manually recorded process information, or recruitment by another organisation.
The new Criminal Act provision does not turn every trade-secret dispute into espionage. Prosecutors must establish that the information meets the threshold for a national secret and demonstrate the required relationship with a foreign country or equivalent organisation. Cases below that threshold can continue to be pursued through South Korea’s separate industrial-technology protection legislation and other criminal provisions.
That distinction matters in semiconductor engineering, where legitimate cross-border collaboration is routine. Equipment companies work with several fabs, universities collaborate internationally, engineers move between employers, and process-development programmes can involve suppliers and customers in different jurisdictions.
Protection measures therefore have to distinguish normal technical exchange from unauthorised transfer without making collaboration unworkable. Classification, access controls, data governance, personnel management, and contractual restrictions all sit alongside network security when strategically sensitive manufacturing information is involved.
Semiconductors have become a particularly sensitive part of South Korea’s industrial policy because memory, high-bandwidth memory, advanced manufacturing processes, packaging, and production equipment influence exports as well as the supply of AI, communications, automotive, and defence electronics.
The revised law also changes the potential legal consequences where a technology-leak investigation establishes a foreign-state connection. Article 98-2 provides a distinct national-security route alongside legislation designed specifically to protect industrial technology, giving prosecutors different tools depending on the character of the information and how it was obtained.
The exact reach of the provision will become clearer through enforcement and court interpretation after it enters force. Establishing what qualifies as a national secret, and proving the required link to a foreign organisation, are likely to determine which semiconductor cases move from industrial-technology offences into espionage prosecutions.
For South Korea’s electronics sector, the immediate change is more concrete: from 13 September, strategically sensitive technical information obtained for a foreign state or equivalent organisation can fall within a dedicated espionage offence rather than a law framed primarily around an enemy state.
