[Sportschosun Jang Jong-ho, Reporter] A total of 70,313 missing-person reports involving dementia patients were filed from 2022 through June this year, data showed.
However, the cumulative fingerprint pre-registration rate stood at only 50.2% this year, 14 years after the system was introduced, according to the findings.
According to data received on the 2nd by Seo Young-seok, a member of the Health and Welfare Committee of the National Assembly and the Democratic Party of Korea’s floor secretary for Bucheon-si Gap, from the Korean National Police Agency and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, missing-person reports involving dementia patients rose from 14,527 in 2022 to 14,677 in 2023, an increase of 1.0%. They then increased to 15,502 in 2024, up 5.6%, and to 16,586 in 2025, up 7.0%. A total of 38 cases reported from 2022 through June this year were confirmed to have remained unresolved at year-end or the end of a half-year period.
Data from the Korean National Police Agency showed that dementia accounted for 71.7% of the causes of missing-person cases lasting more than 48 hours last year. People aged 70 or older also made up 71.7% of those involved in long-term missing-person cases. Men accounted for 60.1% of cases taking more than 48 hours to resolve, but the figure rose to 83.3% when resolution took 31 days or longer.
By month, missing-person reports involving dementia patients rose 71.1%, from 965 in February 2025 to 1,651 in July, and reached 1,634 in August. Seo Young-seok pointed out that reports tend to occur more frequently in spring and summer than in winter. Given the vulnerability of older dementia patients to heat-related illness, the importance of pre-registration for rapid discovery is even greater.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare guides and supports the pre-registration of fingerprints and other information for dementia patients through Dementia Relief Centers nationwide. The pre-registration system allows fingerprints, photographs, and caregivers’ contact information to be registered in advance so that police can quickly verify a missing person’s identity through fingerprint matching and facial similarity searches.
However, according to data from the Korean National Police Agency, the fingerprint pre-registration rate stood at only 50.2% as of the end of June this year. Of the 799,231 people eligible for registration, 398,002, or 49.8%, remained unregistered.
The annual rate of new registrations rose from 4.9% in 2022 to 5.8% in 2023 and 6.8% in both 2024 and 2025. However, the population eligible for registration also grew from 671,844 in 2022 to 786,949 in 2025, keeping the cumulative registration rate in the 50% range each year.
Seo Young-seok said, "A missing-person case involving a dementia patient requires above all a swift response. With the cumulative fingerprint pre-registration rate remaining in the 50% range, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Korean National Police Agency, and other relevant agencies must work together to examine the reasons for the low registration rate and devise effective measures to prevent missing-person cases from becoming long-term cases in which the person remains undiscovered."
Jang Jong-ho, Reporter bellho@sportschosun.com
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.
