Apostille Korea Collects Originals Directly for International Marriage Identity Checks The revised marriage brokerage act requires a health check certificate, a criminal record certificate, proof of employment and a residence record to be given to the prospective bride, with notarial authentication.

Apostille Korea said it provides a service that obtains the civil documents needed for identity verification by international marriage brokers directly from the issuing bodies and delivers them. The conventional approach of receiving papers from the individual concerned has long been criticised as unable to screen out forgeries. Brokers also face administrative penalties if the verification steps are not carried out properly.

Tighter rules put identity verification at the centre

According to the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the number of international marriage brokers registered with the government stood at 361 as of April. Compared with 512 in 2013, that is a fall of close to half. Behind the sharp drop lies a wave of tighter government regulation that followed a rise in fraud cases connected to international marriage. Under the revised marriage brokerage act, an international marriage arranged through a broker requires a health check certificate, a criminal record certificate, proof of employment and a residence record to be provided to the prospective bride, and those documents must go through notarial authentication. Where the procedure is not carried out properly, a fine may be imposed and, in the worst case, a closure order or a suspension of business order may follow. That is why identity verification has become the industry's central concern.

An in-house team still leaves the forgery risk

In response, a growing number of firms have set up separate identity verification teams. Such a unit receives marriage-related documents from the individual, including academic records, graduation certificates and criminal record replies, and then checks them with the relevant ministry and its local branch. Yet doubts about the effectiveness remain. The industry's own reaction is that committing staff and paying costs for routine document checking weighs on the operation. The larger problem is structural: even with a verification team, the papers still arrive from the individual concerned. In an environment where forging a document online is not difficult, submission by the individual alone cannot screen out forgeries. Apostille Korea covers this stretch of the process by obtaining the originals directly from the issuing bodies and delivering them.

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Source: 산업일보 · 2017-06-22