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How to Get Apartment CCTV Footage in Korea From the Management Office

9 min read

TL;DR

  • Footage from your apartment complex's cameras is held by the management office, which must show you footage you appear in, or explain a refusal, within 10 days.
  • For footage you appear in, "you must report it to the police" and "other people are in it too" are not valid reasons to refuse; other people are blurred or covered before you watch.
  • Footage you do not appear in, such as a clip of only your parked car and someone else, is a matter for the police: report it, and the office may give it to them for the investigation.
  • Complex footage must be kept for at least 30 days but can be deleted after that, so ask as soon as something happens.

If something happened inside your apartment complex in Korea, ask the management office (관리사무소)1 for the CCTV footage. If you appear in it, the office must let you see it, or tell you why not, within 10 days. The footage must be kept for at least 30 days and can be deleted after that, so ask right away. Footage you are not in is usually obtained through a police report.

Who has the footage

The cameras inside a complex belong to whoever manages the complex. Korea's Apartment Housing Management Act calls this the managing body: for example the head of the management office when residents run the complex themselves, a housing management company when they hire one, or the landlord company in a rental complex. Either way, the place you go is the management office of your complex.

Article 39 of the Regulation on Housing Construction Standards and Article 9 of its Rules call for cameras in each elevator, at each playground and at each building entrance when a complex is built with 300 or more households, or with 150 or more and an elevator or central heating. That rule dates from 2011, so an older complex may not have them all. When an older complex installs or replaces cameras, it follows the same standard (Enforcement Rule, Article 8(2)1). Elevator footage is also requested from the management office.

The office cannot hand footage to just anyone. Article 8(3) of the Enforcement Rule of the Apartment Housing Management Act forbids it to show or give footage to others, with five exceptions:

The office may show or give footageExample
To the person who appears in itYou, slipping in the parking garage
With the consent of the person in itA neighbor in the clip agrees
When needed to investigate or prosecute a crimeA police investigation
When needed for a criminal trialA court
When another law specifically provides for it-

Who can ask

You can ask to view footage in which you yourself appear (Standard Personal Information Protection Guidelines, Article 44(1)). The Personal Information Protection Act (the Act) gives this right to the person who can be identified in the footage (Articles 2 and 35). Owning or renting the unit has nothing to do with it, so tenants, foreign residents, and a delivery driver or visitor filmed in the complex can all use the same steps.

If you cannot go yourself, a representative can ask for you: a legal representative, or someone you authorize with a power of attorney, as Article 45 of the Act's Enforcement Decree allows. For a child under 14, a parent or other legal representative can ask (the Act, Article 38(2)).

Footage you are not in is different. Say your parked car was scratched overnight and the clip shows only someone else. Watching it means receiving another person's footage.

The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC)2 guide treats this as giving data to a third party, which a private operator such as a management office may do only in the cases the law lists, such as the filmed person's consent, a specific legal basis, or an urgent threat to life, body or property. So for a scratched car, report it to the police. As the third exception in the table says, the office may give footage to the police when a criminal investigation needs it (Enforcement Rule, Article 8(3)3).

How to ask

  1. Call or visit the management office. Give the date, the time window and the place, and ask whether that footage still exists. A narrow place helps, such as "Building 105, elevator 1" or "B2 parking, zone B".
  2. Make the request in the way the office has set up. Article 41(2) of the Enforcement Decree says that way must be easy to use, such as in writing, by phone or by email.
  3. Bring ID. The office checks that you are the person in the footage or a lawful representative. The Standard Guidelines name a resident registration card, a driver's license and a passport as examples (Article 44(3)).
  4. Within 10 days of the request you made in step 2, the office tells you when and where you can view the footage, or why it is postponing or refusing and how to object (Enforcement Decree, Articles 41 and 42).

If you do not speak Korean, a short written note helps at the counter. This line says "I am asking to view CCTV footage in which I appear": 본인이 찍힌 CCTV 영상 열람을 요청합니다. Add the date, time window and place, plus what you wore, so staff can find you in the footage.

There may be a fee. The office can charge a fee and postage within its actual costs (Enforcement Decree, Article 47(1)), and the PIPC guide says it can also charge the actual cost of blurring other people.

When the office can refuse, and when it cannot

The office can limit or refuse access when a law bans or limits access, when it could harm another person's life or body, or when it could unfairly harm another person's property or other interests (the Act, Article 35(4)). If only part of the footage falls under these grounds, it must show you the rest (Enforcement Decree, Article 42(1)).

In a press release dated June 16, 2025, the PIPC said that "police must be present", "you must report it to the police" and "other people are in the footage too" are not valid reasons to refuse you footage you appear in. The same release describes an apartment management office that refused a resident's request to see parking garage footage of themselves, saying it had to be reported to the police and could not be viewed privately. The PIPC fined that office 3.9 million won.

If other people appear in the clip with you, Article 46 of the Standard Guidelines has the office make them unrecognizable before you watch. The PIPC says blurring is the rule, but if blurring is hard the office may cover those parts with paper or sticky notes.

If 10 days pass with no answer, or the office refuses for a reason other than the grounds above, you can report it to the Personal Information Infringement Report Center at 118, the channel set up under Article 62 of the Act.

Ask before the footage is deleted

Article 8(2)3 of the Enforcement Rule of the Apartment Housing Management Act requires complexes to keep camera footage for at least 30 days. Because that is a minimum, the actual period can differ by complex. Rules for public spaces and daycare centers are in How long is CCTV footage kept?

Cameras near the complex entrance may belong to the district office

A camera that watches the road or the entrance outside your complex may be a public camera run by the district office, not the management office.

I searched the address fields of all 381,036 raw records in Korea's national CCTV standard dataset (전국CCTV표준데이터), data downloaded 2026-09-20. 1,441 public CCTV records have the word for apartment (아파트) in their address. In 277 of them, an entrance word such as 입구 or 정문 follows it, as in "OO Apartment entrance". Records whose address does not contain the word 아파트 are not in this count, including those that write APT or only a brand name.

For footage from those cameras, ask the agency that manages them instead of the management office. To see whether the open data lists a public camera near the place where it happened, search Viewcone for your neighborhood (dong), the road in front of the complex or a nearby school. The map's labels are in Korean. Tap a site to see its purpose and its managing agency (관리 기관). How to request CCTV footage in Korea covers the request to that agency and its form.

FAQ

Can I get a copy of the file?

Yes. Article 4, item 3 of the Act says the right to view includes getting a copy, and the PIPC guide also counts handing over a printout or copy as viewing. If other people appear with you, the office covers them in the copy, and it can charge the actual cost.

Sources

Footnotes

  1. In Korea, the management office (관리사무소) is the on-site office that runs an apartment complex's shared facilities, including its CCTV cameras.

  2. In Korea, the Personal Information Protection Commission is the government body that enforces the privacy law and fines operators who break it.

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