With related calls expected to intensify ahead of the 9th simultaneous local elections on June 3, complaints are growing as mobile carriers are providing virtual mobile numbers for election polling without sufficient notification to users.
Earlier this year, the three major carriers posted a "User Notice on the Provision of Virtual Mobile Numbers" on their websites. Under Articles 57-8 and 108-2 of the Public Official Election Act, the mobile phone numbers of users aged 18 or older as of the election date may be provided for survey purposes to political parties or polling organizations. Instead of actual numbers, carriers convert customer numbers into virtual numbers before handing them over to polling organizations.
Carriers generate revenue in this process. The unit price for providing virtual numbers, set by the National Election Commission and the Election Opinion Poll Review Commission, is 34.6 won per number per day. In 2024, the National Assembly reported that the three carriers earned at least 4.3 billion won ($3.2 million) in additional revenue through this channel. When multiple organizations conduct surveys simultaneously, users receive repeated calls from different organizations, increasing fatigue.
Users who do not want their virtual numbers provided can register their refusal through ARS or other means, but few users are aware of this option. Each carrier merely substitutes website notices or postal mail for notification, with no direct delivery method such as text messages in place. Unless users actively seek out the information, it is difficult for them to even know they are subject to polling calls.
The excessive provision of virtual numbers has also been identified as a matter for improvement in political circles. A 2024 research report commissioned by the Election Opinion Poll Review Commission, "Institutional Improvements to Address Changes in the Election Polling Environment and Enhance Reliability," pointed out that virtual numbers are currently being provided at up to 30 times the target sample size. The report warned that such excessive provision exacerbates user inconvenience and low response rates, and proposed reducing the scale of provision and focusing on original sample-based data collection.
Experts and consumer groups agree that user protection measures must be strengthened even while acknowledging the public interest of opinion polls. They argue that carriers should not rely solely on website notices to inform users about virtual number provision and opt-out procedures, but should instead use direct methods such as text messages. The telecommunications industry maintains that it provides virtual numbers in accordance with current law and informs users of the refusal procedure, but consumer groups stress that the fundamental structure, in which users become survey targets without their knowledge, must first be changed.
