Key content of the regulatory sandbox standard operating guidelines /Courtesy of the Office for Government Policy Coordination

As the regulatory sandbox is operated differently by each government ministry, the government announced standard guidelines. The regulatory sandbox is a system that temporarily suspends regulatory applications for products and services utilizing new technologies, and is currently being operated by six ministries, including the Financial Services Commission. The Office for Government Policy Coordination anticipates that the approval speed of the regulatory sandbox will increase with the standard operational guidelines.

On the 15th, the Office for Government Policy Coordination held the 581st Regulatory Reform Committee meeting and approved the "standard operational guidelines for the regulatory sandbox." The regulatory sandbox was introduced in 2019, and as of now, 1,752 projects have been approved, with regulatory improvements made on 373 cases. It is regarded within the government as a representative platform for innovation in regulations for new industries.

This decision came as various ministries have operated the regulatory sandbox independently, leading to confusion among corporations due to different procedures and criteria. The case in which ministries impose excessive additional conditions on corporations in the approval process for the regulatory sandbox was also considered.

The standard operational guidelines for the regulatory sandbox serve as integrated operational guidelines that ministries must follow, covering the entire process from application to approval, post-management, and legal system maintenance. Once the guidelines are implemented, ministries must swiftly amend regulations rather than proceed with verification for tasks that require immediate regulatory amendments among the projects that applied for regulatory exemptions.

In this regard, Jeong Byeong-kyu, the director of regulatory innovation planning at the Office for Government Policy Coordination, explained, "In some cases, it was possible to conduct business purely through legal interpretation without applying for the regulatory sandbox, yet one ministry did not interpret it that way and proceeded with verification, leading to the creation of these standard guidelines."

Additionally, to prevent excessive additional conditions during the review and approval stages, criteria for imposing additional conditions and standards for what should not be imposed have been established through this guideline. Additional conditions are limited to matters to be reflected when preparing future regulatory laws. Comprehensive and ambiguous principles and criteria that are stricter than current laws should be avoided.

Projects similar to those already approved can be fast-tracked for approval. The process of the Regulatory Exemption Committee is omitted, and only the decision-making process of the specialized committee is conducted. The consultation period with regulatory ministries is reduced from 30 days to 15 days.

In the verification and post-management phase, ministries must confirm the necessary content and measurement indicators at the time of approving exemptions and notify corporations. This is to assist corporations in accumulating data necessary for legal system maintenance through verification.

In the final stage of legal system maintenance, ministries must assess the necessity of legal amendments immediately if the stability of the verification project is proven, even without a request from the project operator. The criteria for determining whether to amend the laws include safety and the socioeconomic benefits to users. As long as it does not pose a risk to the lives and safety of the public, laws should generally be amended.

The Office for Government Policy Coordination stated, "The standard operational guidelines will be distributed to all ministries immediately for implementation," and added, "We will continue efforts to enhance the efficiency of the system's operation in order to achieve regulatory innovation results that corporations and the public can feel."