South KoreaThe Framework Act on AI Development and Trust, Law No. 20676, promulgated 21 January 2025 and in force 22 January 2026, defines high-impact AI by sector and imposes article 31 transparency and article 34 risk-management, explanation and human-oversight duties. Fines are deferred for at least one year and justice uses are not separately enumerated.
Regulation Tracker · Country · Asia-Pacific
South Korea
Developingcivil lawupdated 2026-09-04verified 2026-09-04
As of 4 September 2026 Korea combines a binding horizontal statute with judicial soft law. The AI Basic Act has been in force since 22 January 2026 with transparency and high-impact duties. The National Court Administration's AI Guidebook for Judges governs judges' use of commercial AI, and the judiciary is building its own trial-support and sentencing AI.
As of 2026-09-04, South Korea has 1 binding rule, official guidance in 5 categories, 0 proposals and 0 positions set only by case law across the 20 categories in the map. Binding rules cover horizontal AI statute. In 11 categories we found nothing; in 3 the position is not yet determined.
How to read this page
- Binding rule Binding rule means a rule in force from a court, statute, regulator or equivalent authority.
- Official guidance Official guidance means an official non-binding position from a judiciary, regulator, bar or public body.
- Proposed / consultation Proposed / consultation means a public bill, draft rule or consultation that is not yet in force.
- Set by case law Set by case law means no rule was found, but courts have set the position in decisions.
- Nothing found Nothing found means the category was checked and no rule, guidance, proposal or case-law position was found.
- Not yet determined Not yet determined means research did not establish a reliable position yet.
The rules, category by category
The AI Guidebook for Judges, announced by the National Court Administration on 24 February 2026 and distributed in March 2026, provides checklists addressing hallucination, bias and privacy when judges use commercial AI. There is no lawyer-facing rule.
The AI Guidebook for Judges sets standards and about twenty graded examples for using commercial AI in trial and administrative work while judicial responsibility and impartiality are preserved. It was drafted by a task force of eight judges formed in October 2025. The official press release is not retrievable.
The Guidebook and court-administration statements hold that AI must not replace judicial judgment; the planned sentencing AI is to provide comparable-case references only, with sentencing remaining with judges.
- AI Guidebook for Judges 2026-02-24
- Newspim
The judiciary runs a closed trial-support AI in pilot across courts for research and summarisation, with issue analysis due by May 2027 and full rollout in June 2028, a sentencing-support AI due December 2028, and AI pilot trial divisions in the Patent Court from April 2026 using generative AI with parties' consent.
- AI Guidebook for Judges 2026-02-24
- Newspim
The Personal Information Protection Commission publishes AI privacy guides, most recently a public-sector AI privacy protection guide posted on 31 August 2026. These are general rather than legal-sector-specific.
No court rule. The judges' Judicial AI Research Group guideline of February 2025, which is not official court policy, proposed that courts may require parties to disclose AI use, tools and prompts for submitted documents.
No rule, guidance or reported case found as of 4 September 2026.
No AI-specific evidence rule. The judges' research-group guideline of February 2025 says existing civil and criminal procedure law governs AI-generated evidence and flags deepfake risks. AI Basic Act article 31 requires labelling of generative outputs indistinguishable from reality.
No bar guidance. The judiciary addresses confidentiality by routing judges to its own closed AI platform rather than external large language models, per February 2026 statements.
No rule, guidance or reported case found as of 4 September 2026.
No rule, guidance or reported case found as of 4 September 2026.
No lawyer-facing rule. AI Basic Act article 31 requires operators of generative or high-impact AI to notify users in advance that a product operates on AI.
No rule, guidance or reported case found as of 4 September 2026.
No AI-specific ruling or regulation on consumer legal AI found as of 4 September 2026.
No mandatory AI training found as of 4 September 2026; the judges' guidebook is educational.
No law-firm vendor guidance. The judiciary builds in-house, procuring its sentencing AI publicly rather than licensing external large language models.
The Korean Bar Association had issued no AI guidance; its June 2024 page only summarises activity by other bars. A Seoul Bar Association legal-tech and AI committee reportedly drafted guidelines, but no text was located.
The research budget was exhausted before Korean case law on AI-fabricated citations could be checked.
Not researched within the research budget; the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board was not checked.
Official documents recorded for South Korea (3)
- AI Guidebook for Judges
Korea National Court Administration · revised 2026-02-24 · verified 2026-09-04
- Framework Act on the Development of Artificial Intelligence and Establishment of a Foundation for Trust (Law No. 20676)
Korea National Assembly · revised 2026-01-22 · verified 2026-09-04
- Guidelines on the Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Judiciary (Judicial AI Research Group)
Korea Judicial AI Research Group · revised 2025-02-01 · verified 2026-09-04
Court incidents on the record in South Korea
- Yichang District Court (Hubei)2026-07-21 Warning
Cite this page
SafeLegalAI Legal AI Regulation Tracker, "South Korea" (updated 2026-09-04, verified 2026-09-04), https://safelegalai.com/regulation/country/kr (accessed 2026-09-04). Data: CC BY 4.0.
SafeLegalAI is a research publication by Cognesio LLP, not a law firm. Nothing here is legal advice, and no lawyer–client relationship arises from reading it. Rules change; always check the official document linked on each record and take advice on your own situation. Researched and drafted with AI assistance; verified against primary sources and edited by Cognesio LLP. The linked official documents are the record — our summaries are not the law and are not legal advice.