Direct destruction of day-care video falls outside Article 54(3)

Cross-family AI independent reading & axis check

6 of 8 axes matched GPT-6 Astra (OpenAI, codex CLI) · 2026-10-25

A reader from another model family (GPT-6 Astra), given the official text but not the primary reading, agreed on 6 of the 8 axes; the readings differed on axis 6 (relation to precedent), axis 8 (open question and revisit condition).

Raw responses and comparison record: Protocol · Blind readings (JSONL) · Axis comparison (JSONL) · SHA-256 (JSON)

Lower-court contrast & scope of application

Lower-court reading vs. Supreme Court holding

Lower-court context: The Ulsan District Court, in its judgment of 13 June 2019 (2018No1287), convicted the defendant on the principal charge. It read Article 15-5(3) as imposing the duty to secure the safety of the video information and Article 54(3) as the penalty for breaching that duty, so that the phrase 'the person whose video information was damaged' meant the person who could not ensure, or did not ensure, that the information was not lost, stolen, leaked, altered or damaged. It then held that the defendant, who ran the day-care centre, took no safety measure and hid the storage device holding the recorded video so that all of it was deleted, had failed in that duty and thereby had the video damaged.

Supreme Court standard: The Supreme Court held that the court below had misread the principle of legality and the meaning of 'the person whose video information was damaged' in Article 54(3). The words denoting a person harmed by an act denote a person harmed by another's act and do not cover a person who acted himself, and a statutory provision using that wording can be viewed as punishing negligence. Reading the provision in the light of its purpose of minimising the exposure of the director, carers and infants to privacy intrusion, and of Article 56 of the former Childcare Act, which imposes only an administrative fine for breaches of the installation and management duty under Article 15-4, the Court held that the Act does not punish a person who damages the video information himself. It therefore reversed the judgment and remanded the case to the Ulsan District Court for retrial.

Distinguishing conditions

• A day-care operator who failed to take the safety measures required by Article 15-5(3) and thereby had the video information damaged by another person or by some other cause.
• A case of failing to install or manage the closed-circuit television at all, which Article 56 of the former Childcare Act deals with by an administrative fine rather than this criminal penalty.
• A case of destroying, altering or leaking another person's personal information, which the Personal Information Protection Act punishes under its own express provisions.

Record verification notes

Set the charge against the two limbs the Court kept apart: whether the operator failed to take the safety measures required by Article 15-5(3), and whether the video information was thereby damaged, rather than whether the operator himself destroyed it. Then check whether another statute applies to the destruction, since the Personal Information Protection Act punishes damage to another person's personal information expressly, while Article 56 of the former Childcare Act applies only an administrative fine to the installation and management duty under Article 15-4. Confirm also that the version of the Childcare Act in force before the amendment of 29 December 2020 (Law No. 17785) governs the acts charged.

From the official text

Points at issue

구 영유아보육법 제54조 제3항의 처벌대상자 중 ‘영상정보를 훼손당한 자’의 의미 / 영상정보를 삭제·은닉 등의 방법으로 직접 훼손하는 행위를 한 자가 위 규정의 처벌대상에 포함되는지 여부(소극) 및 이때 행위자가 어린이집을 설치·운영하는 자라도 마찬가지인지 여부(적극)

Summary of the holding

구 영유아보육법(2020. 12. 29. 법률 제17785호로 개정되기 전의 것, 이하 같다) 제15조의4 제1항은 "어린이집을 설치·운영하는 자는 아동학대 방지 등 영유아의 안전과 어린이집의 보안을 위하여 개인정보 보호법 및 관련 법령에 따른 폐쇄회로 텔레비전을 설치·관리하여야 한다."라고 정하고, 구 영유아보육법 제15조의5 제3항은 "어린이집을 설치·운영하는 자는 제15조의4 제1항의 영상정보가 분실·도난·유출·변조 또는 훼손되지 아니하도록 내부 관리계획의 수립, 접속기록 보관 등 대통령령으로 정하는 바에 따라 안전성 확보에 필요한 기술적·관리적 및 물리적 조치를 하여야 한다."라고 정한다. 그리고 구 영유아보육법 제54조 제3항은 "제15조의5 제3항에 따른 안전성 확보에 필요한 조치를 하지 아니하여 영상정보를 분실·도난·유출·변조 또는 훼손당한 자는 2년 이하의 징역 또는 2천만 원 이하의 벌금에 처한다."라고 정한다. 여기서 처벌의 대상이 되는 자 중 ‘영상정보를 훼손당한 자’란 어린이집을 설치·운영하는 자로서 구 영유아보육법 제15조의5 제3항에서 정한 폐쇄회로 영상정보에 대한 안전성 확보에 필요한 조치를 하지 않았고 그로 인해 영상정보를 훼손당한 자를 뜻한다. 영상정보를 삭제·은닉 등의 방법으로 직접 훼손하는 행위를 한 자는 위 규정의 처벌대상이 아니고 행위자가 어린이집을 설치·운영하는 자라고 해도 마찬가지이다.

Order

원심판결을 파기하고, 사건을 울산지방법원에 환송한다.

Provisions referred to

구 영유아보육법(2020. 12. 29. 법률 제17785호로 개정되기 전의 것) 제15조의4 제1항, 제15조의5 제3항, 제54조 제3항