Between 2022 and October 12, 17 people wearing police-issued smartwatches designed to protect victims of stalking, dating violence, and domestic abuse were killed in South Korea, according to data obtained by Yang Bu-nam of the Democratic Party from the Korean National Police Agency.
Seventeen Deaths Beneath the Emergency Button
The statistical breakdown compiled by the National Police Agency shows five killings in 2022, one in 2023, one in 2024, five last year, and five this year up to the 12th. In addition to the 17 completed homicides, police records document 10 attempted murders. The underlying threats driving these protective measures frequently overlap, with domestic abuse accounting for 14 of the recorded cases, stalking appearing in 10, dating violence in 8, and sexual violence in 1. Stalking offenses frequently manifested concurrently with domestic or dating violence.
The protective framework deployed for these individuals often extended beyond a wrist-worn panic button. Victims frequently received multiple overlapping interventions, including registration in the 112 emergency response system, customized neighborhood police patrols, private security details, and emergency temporary housing. Yet these layered precautions routinely failed to block fatal encounters.
When Judicial Safeguards and Hardware Fail
In June 2022 in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, a stalking victim protected by a smartwatch, 112 system registration, and customized patrols was stabbed to death by her former romantic partner directly outside the shared entrance of her residence. Similar system failures occurred in Seoul’s Gangbuk district in 2023 and Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, in 2024, where domestic abuse murders proceeded despite active safety protocols.
Judicial and investigative hurdles compounded the technical vulnerabilities. In Guro-gu, Seoul, police sought an arrest warrant for a perpetrator two days before he killed his former partner in 2022, but prosecutors rejected the request, demanding supplementary investigation due to insufficient proof of charges. The assailant subsequently tracked down the victim at the bar she operated and carried out the attack. In a separate 2025 stalking murder in Daegu, police similarly requested an arrest warrant that was ultimately dismissed by a court on the grounds that the suspect was already undergoing investigation without detention. The assailant later scaled the exterior gas pipes of an apartment building to infiltrate the victim’s home.
Hardware maintenance also emerged as a critical point of failure. During a recent murder and abduction case in Songpa-gu, Seoul, investigators discovered the emergency smartwatch was completely discharged at the time of the attack, rendering it useless for signaling authorities. Standard police-issued smartwatches maintain a maximum battery life of three days under a full charge, placing the ongoing burden of power management entirely on victims.
The Structural Debate Over Relationship Crimes
Because the current safety apparatus requires a victim under active assault to manually press a button to transmit an emergency signal and location data, sudden surprise attacks often bypass the device entirely even when it functions properly. In response to the Songpa-gu incident, police began reviewing modifications to victim protection manuals to execute periodic computerized checks of smartwatch power statuses, triggering automated alerts to handling officers if a device remains powered down for approximately one week.
Police initiated a nationwide comprehensive inspection of all active stalking, dating violence, and domestic abuse investigations alongside high-risk safety measures from the 19th to the 30th. Experts emphasize that relying on reactive wrist-worn hardware to summon help after a threat materializes possesses inherent limits, as perpetrators frequently close the physical distance before a button can be pushed.
Yang emphasized that killings persist despite the issuance of smartwatches and restraining orders, arguing that oversight mechanisms must pivot toward physically blocking assailant access and actively detaining high-risk offenders to achieve genuine recidivism prevention.
