Korea faces interpreter shortages as foreign-language emergency calls surge

A sharp rise in non-English, non-Chinese calls to Korea's 112 emergency hotline has highlighted serious shortfalls in multilingual police support. Calls in foreign languages jumped to 21,252 in 2025, more than twice the previous year's total, and nearly matched that figure in the first eight months of one outlet year. The hotline can only provide in-house interpretation for English and Chinese; other languages depend on outside providers and civilian interpreters, of whom the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency counted 629 as of September, with Chinese, English and Vietnamese speakers forming the largest groups.

During arrests, officers must convey the Miranda-style warning, but obtaining an interpreter on the spot is often difficult, leading some precincts to use smartphone apps that are not universally available. To address the issue, the National Police Agency is developing an AI-enabled 112 system that will auto-detect callers' languages and deliver real-time translation in English, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Thai, with a projected budget of 13.6 billion won for 2027 and total spending of 45.6 billion won over three years. Experts caution that human verification will remain essential to avoid mistranslations.