From the field: Photos of Public Procurement Service evaluators leaked

The Public Procurement Service held an unscheduled emergency briefing Tuesday morning at the government press room in Daejeon.

Under the heading "Rapid Response to Leaked Photos of Procurement Evaluators," officials pledged to focus all efforts on minimizing damage and preventing a recurrence.

Most evaluation work in the public procurement market is conducted offline, though smaller-value cases also use online assessments. The leaked photos did not result from an external hack but occurred during the development and testing of an AI system designed to improve the online evaluation process.

Photos of 189 evaluators who participated in the online assessments were leaked between July and October when identity-verification photos were uploaded to an external generative AI service. The photos were originally used to monitor whether evaluators were personally conducting their assessments and performing their duties diligently — a function that in offline evaluations is handled by cross-checking evaluators' faces in real time.

Fortunately, the investigation found that no personal identification or financial information — including national ID numbers, account numbers or other sensitive data — was included in the leaked material. With no category label identifying the subjects as procurement evaluators, and only photos exposed, the scope of potential harm appears limited.

The Public Procurement Service has been actively pursuing a sweeping overhaul of its evaluation system, including the development of an AI-based technology assessment support system, to address problems such as collusion between some evaluators and companies being assessed, as well as evaluators performing their duties negligently.

"Nothing happens if you do nothing." Bustling activity inevitably stirs up dust — but dust is only dust. Still, this incident is undoubtedly a reminder to remain vigilant going forward.

The agency has faced considerable criticism in recent years after it moved to exclude civil servants entirely from evaluation panels — a departure from the past practice of having them participate directly, accounting for roughly 10 percent of evaluators. Some argued that removing the civil servants most familiar with the evaluation process and leaving it entirely to outside evaluators amounted to a dereliction of duty.

Particularly when cases of collusion or misconduct among some evaluators surfaced, the agency also drew mockery for appearing to keep its own hands clean — unwilling to get involved yet eager to avoid blame.

Setting aside such criticism, the Public Procurement Service has continued its efforts to ensure fair and transparent assessments in the public market. Its current initiatives — including a pilot launch of AI-based technology evaluation and a push to establish a dedicated procurement evaluation institute — fit squarely within that broader direction.