Mobile ID card website, app down for 2 hours in third such failure this week

A sign informs people that a system error is impeding document access and administrative work at a district office in Seoul on Nov. 17. [NEWS1]

The government website and application used to display mobile identification cards went down for two hours on Friday afternoon, marking the third major failure in nationwide administrative systems in a week.

Disruptions in access to the mobile identification card website and application began around approximately 1:54 p.m. Website users faced a message alerting them that service had been suspended.

Both the website and application were again functioning by 4 p.m.

The Interior Ministry and state-run Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation, which is in charge of managing the mobile identification card system, said Friday that they were investigating the cause of the system failure.

Friday’s system outage is the third administrative system shutdown to occur, following a major failure of the public system that manages state-certified documents on Nov. 17.

That system was only restored two days later, but was shortly followed by another 20-minute outage that mainly affected administrative offices in Seoul.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]