About the chatbot
Q.What is the chatbot and how do I use it?
A.The chatbot answers questions about life in Korea from the articles on this site, in 8 languages. Open it from the chatbot page or with “Ask the AI about this article” near the end of each article, then type your question. It answers in the language of the page you are on and links the articles it used under the answer.
Q.Is it free? Do I need to sign up?
A.It is free. You do not need an account or to sign in.
Q.Where do the chatbot’s answers come from?
A.The chatbot uses only our own articles in 8 languages: newcomer guides, news and topic pages, and statements. MAP staff write these from official sources such as HiKorea, the Ministry of Justice and law.go.kr, and every article lists its sources. Our language reviewers check the translations. How we write and check articles is set out in our Editorial Guide.
The chatbot is not trained on this content. It looks the articles up each time someone asks. So when we correct an article, the very next answer uses the corrected version.
Q.How does the chatbot avoid wrong or misleading answers on legal matters and refugee procedures?
A.The chatbot answers only from articles published on RefugeeLifeKorea.org, never from general knowledge on the internet. For each question it searches our site and reads the matching articles. It links the sources it used under the answer, so the reader can always check the original.
There are firm limits on what it may say:
- No phone numbers, amounts, fees, dates or eligibility rules unless they appear in an article it actually read.
- Closed or expired notices are left out of its search.
- No legal advice.
When our site does not cover a question, the chatbot says so plainly. It does not guess. It sends the person to 1345 (Immigration Contact Center), the local immigration office, or the refugee legal-aid organizations named in our articles.
Q.Can I act on an answer right away?
A.Answers are general information taken from our articles. Deadlines, amounts and rules change, so before an important decision, open the article linked under the answer and check with the office it names or with 1345.
Q.Does it give legal advice or fill in refugee application forms?
A.No. For legal advice, it points you to the refugee legal-aid organizations named in our articles. For procedures, it points you to 1345 and the local immigration office.
Q.Which languages can I use? Does it understand dialects?
A.The chatbot replies in our 8 site languages: Korean, English, French, Arabic, Amharic, Burmese, Russian and Persian. It understands everyday and colloquial questions, including dialectal Arabic, and it answers in Modern Standard Arabic so the answer stays clear and consistent. For Burmese and Amharic we use a stronger AI model so the answers read naturally.
Q.How is my personal information protected?
A.The chatbot never asks for personal details. The chat box asks people not to enter their name, phone number or ID number. If someone types them anyway, the following are removed automatically before the conversation is saved:
- phone numbers
- email addresses
- ID, passport and card numbers
- street addresses
What we keep is limited to:
- the question and the answer
- the pages cited
- the country, from the network and never a precise location
- a random ID for that browser tab
We do not keep IP addresses, names or accounts. Records are deleted after two years. Full details are in our Privacy policy.
Q.Can I ask you to delete my conversation?
A.Yes. Conversations are saved without names, so we find yours from the details you send us. Email refugeelifekorea@mapcast.org with the date and time of the conversation and what you asked, and we will delete it. In any case, every record is deleted after two years. Full details are in our Privacy policy.
Q.What does the chatbot do in an emergency?
A.There is a real trade-off between protecting privacy and following up on individual cases, and we have chosen privacy. The chatbot does not alert staff, does not try to identify the person, and does not track whether a referral was used. People in crisis may be afraid of being identified, and we do not want that fear to stop anyone from asking for help.
Instead, the chatbot sends people straight to the national crisis lines, which are staffed by trained people around the clock. Emergencies are recognised in two ways:
- by the AI itself
- by a fixed list of words for self-harm, violence and immediate danger in all 8 languages
When either one detects an emergency, the chatbot answers briefly and with care. It does not try to counsel or diagnose. The crisis numbers are always added to the answer by that fixed rule, not left to the AI’s judgment:
- self-harm: 109 (suicide prevention), 1577-0199 (mental-health crisis) and 119 (fire and ambulance)
- violence or danger: 112 (police), 119 (fire and ambulance), 1366 (women’s emergency line) and 1577-1366 (Danuri, multilingual)
The chatbot also points to our mental health guides.
Q.What if the chatbot cannot help with my question?
A.We do not create a new contact channel inside the chatbot. Instead it sends people to services that already exist, are staffed by trained people, and work in many languages:
- 1345 for stay, visa and daily-life questions
- the local immigration office
- refugee legal-aid organizations
- the crisis lines (see Emergencies)
Q.How do I report a wrong answer?
A.Under each answer, the chatbot asks “Was this answer helpful?”. Choose “No” and write what was wrong; MAP staff read these comments and correct our articles where needed. On an article page you can also use “Report it” at the end of the article, and on translated pages “Fix the translation”.
Q.Who checks the chatbot’s answers?
A.Before launch, we tested the chatbot on a fixed set of 56 questions in several languages, and we run the same test again before any change to the AI model. After launch, MAP staff review the conversations in our newsroom dashboard, together with readers’ feedback. When an answer shows that an article is unclear or out of date, we fix the article. That improves every later answer.
Q.Who runs the chatbot?
A.MAP (Migration to Asia Peace) runs this site and the chatbot. The answers are written by Claude, an AI made by Anthropic.