Why Must Contact Lenses Be Bought Only at Optician Shops? — It's Time to Change This Law

Why must contact lenses be bought only at optician shops? — It's time to change this law.

Living in Korea, there is one regulation that's hard to understand: you cannot buy contact lenses online. This is not merely a case of online sales failing to take off. Article 12(5) of the current Medical Service Technologists Act prohibits anyone from selling glasses and contact lenses via e-commerce or mail order, and Article 12(6) requires opticians to sell glasses and contact lenses only at optician shops. In other words, current Korean law does not set safety conditions and then permit online sales — it chooses to prohibit the online transaction format itself, as a matter of principle. (law.go.kr)

I believe this regulation must now change. There is no disagreement that contact lenses are medical devices that touch the eye directly, and that improper wear and care can lead to corneal damage or infection. That is exactly why proper regulation is needed. But taking safety seriously and forcing consumers to visit a physical optician shop every time they buy a box of lenses are not the same thing. The purpose of regulation should be protecting eye health — and if so, the law should govern how safety was verified, not where the purchase happened.

Compare systems around the world and the problem with Korea's becomes clearer. The United States, too, does not treat contact lenses as ordinary consumer goods anyone can sell freely. It manages them quite strictly. But the method differs from Korea's. Under the FTC's Contact Lens Rule, once a lens fitting is complete the prescriber must give the consumer a copy of the prescription, and the consumer may submit it to any seller they choose. Online sellers may sell after receiving a copy or verifying its contents with the prescriber, and even when consumers don't submit the prescription directly, a procedure exists for the seller to send the manufacturer, brand, power, base curve, and diameter to the prescriber for verification. The FTC states plainly that the rule's purpose is to expand consumer choice and competition among sellers. (Federal Trade Commission)

The philosophy is simple. Professionals do the examination, consumers hold the prescription information, sellers verify it, and consumers choose where to buy. Professionalism wasn't eliminated — professional acts and sales acts were separated. The parts that affect eye health are managed strictly, but the state does not uniformly decide where a person with a proper fitting and a valid prescription may repurchase the same lenses.

Britain is similar. In the UK, a person fitted for contact lenses is issued a contact-lens specification with an expiry date, and under certain conditions sales may proceed under the general direction of registered optical professionals. Online sales are possible within this framework. More interesting still, in 2024 the UK's General Optical Council even took the position that for a specification copy that remains valid and shows no evident error or tampering, there is insufficient public interest in punishing a seller merely for not re-verifying with the original issuer each time. Regulation was not abolished. The points where risk actually exists were re-examined and the regulatory intensity adjusted. (Optical)

Japan is worth noting too. Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare institutionally presupposes that internet and mail-order sales of contact lenses exist, and imposes safety-management duties on sellers. A 2017 ministry notice explicitly includes internet sales in its definition of contact-lens retailers, and requires sellers — face-to-face or not — to confirm whether buyers have seen a medical institution and to provide appropriate information and recommend examinations. That is, the Japanese government also knows online purchases can produce eye-health problems, yet did not conclude “therefore eliminate internet sales.” It chose instead to bring online sales inside the regulatory system and manage them. (MHLW)

Here, why Korea's law feels backward becomes visible. America made prescription information portable; Britain set specifications and professional supervision as its standard; Japan brought online sellers into its regulatory framework. The three systems differ in detail but share a direction: manage the risk — don't ban the internet.

Korea is the reverse. Korea's current law looks first not at “what examination did this person receive,” “when was their eye condition last checked,” “what product are they using,” or “does the seller have proper qualifications and management systems” — but at “is it sold on the internet?” If internet, prohibited. This is less risk-based regulation than sales-channel-based regulation.

Consider someone who has used the identical contact lenses for years. They've had a recent eye exam and know which lenses fit them. Same manufacturer, same product name, same power, same BC and DIA. They simply want one more box this month of the exact product they bought at the optician's last month. Is it truly rational to hold that this person is safe at the moment the product crosses the optician's counter, but that the moment the same shop ships the same product by courier, a grave danger to public health suddenly arises?

If anything, the current system makes it hard to distinguish safety regulation from offline-distribution protection. Work that professionals must do clearly exists: checking eye condition, selecting appropriate lenses for first-time wearers, fitting, checking for abnormalities, correcting improper wear, recommending ophthalmological care when needed. Such professional work should be strengthened. But the logic that even the repeat purchase of an identical, already-verified product must occur in a physical space for professional expertise to be protected does not hold. To protect expertise, design the system so professional acts are compensated — don't chain down the product's distribution channel.

The Constitutional Court has addressed this too. On March 28, 2024, the Court ruled 8–1 that the current provision banning opticians' e-commerce sale of contact lenses is constitutional. The majority reasoned that contact lenses are medical devices attached directly to the cornea, that degradation or contamination in distribution can endanger health, and that given the large number of optician shops and opticians in Korea, the inconvenience of visiting in person is hard to call excessive. (Constitutional Court)

But one thing must be made clear. “Constitutional” does not mean this is the best law the Republic of Korea can choose in 2026. Judging whether a restriction is so excessive as to violate the Constitution and asking whether a more efficient, precise system can be designed for the digital age are entirely different questions. If anything, lawmakers should re-examine the reasoning the ruling exposed. Will we keep the logic that “Korea has many optician shops, so visiting in person isn't very inconvenient”? If bank branches are numerous, may mobile banking be restricted? If supermarkets are plentiful, may online grocery shopping be blocked? If hospitals are nearby, may medical data be exchanged only on paper? Easy access to offline facilities is not a reason to prohibit digital transactions — it is merely an explanation of why the inconvenience was bearable in the past.

Moreover, banning internet sales does not make internet demand disappear. Without a legal, manageable domestic online channel, consumers can turn to overseas sellers and other detours. Then we lose even the chance to impose safety-management responsibility on domestic opticians and domestic sellers. The paradox of regulation: we banned the market in order to manage it, and the ban may push consumers into a market we cannot manage at all.

The answer, then, is neither full liberalization nor the status quo. Fix the law properly.

I believe Article 12(5)'s blanket ban on contact-lens e-commerce should be repealed and replaced with online sales permitted under defined conditions. For first-time wear or product changes, strengthen examination and fitting by opticians or medical professionals, and let consumers verify their lens specifications electronically as a result. Allow online repeat purchases for people holding valid, unexpired examination and fitting records — starting, in principle, with repurchase of the same manufacturer, same product, same power and specifications. Require re-examination after a set period, and apply stricter standards to higher-risk cases: minors, consumers with eye disease, specialty lenses.

Nor must sales be opened to just any business. Let registered optician shops or separately licensed sellers sell online under an optician's supervision, verifying valid examination information at purchase. Record lot numbers and distribution history, set storage and delivery standards, and require guidance during purchase on usage, replacement cycles, side effects, and the need for regular checkups. Manage purchase records so products can be recalled when problems arise, and impose far heavier liability than today for illegal sales or falsified examination data.

That is regulatory reform. Not lowering safety — raising the resolution of regulation.

Not treating a first fitting and a thirtieth repurchase as the same risk; not regulating a healthy adult and a high-risk patient identically; distinguishing the examined from the unexamined, and legal domestic online sellers from untraceable overseas ones. Far more complicated than writing “online sales prohibited” across every case. But a law that restricts citizens' freedom ought to be exactly that precise. A regulation that shifts the greatest inconvenience onto citizens because it is administratively easy cannot be a good regulation.

The optical industry's concerns deserve serious treatment too. Expanded online sales may intensify price competition and reduce some shops' lens revenue. But industry protection must not masquerade as public health. If opticians' expertise matters, build a structure in which examination, fitting, consultation, and regular management are valued independently as professional services. A structure where professional service itself is properly compensated is better for the profession's long-term future than making its income depend on a distribution monopoly.

And consumers must bear responsibility as well. Permitting online sales must not mean “buy lenses freely without examination.” Even America requires prescription verification; Britain requires a valid specification; Japan requires internet sellers to confirm medical visits and provide information. If Korea permits online sales, it can in fact build clearer examination cycles and purchase-record systems than it has now. (Federal Trade Commission)

So this is not a matter of “online shopping is convenient, please allow it.” It is a question of where the Republic of Korea places its regulatory philosophy. In a society where industry and technology change fast, will the state ban every new mode of transaction first and order everyone back to the old ways — or will it identify the actual risks and write new rules capable of controlling them?

I believe the latter is what an advanced law looks like.

The law of the 21st century must move from regulating places to regulating risks. Ask not offline-or-online, but who is selling, whether the consumer's eyes were examined, what product is being bought, whether information was conveyed accurately, whether distribution is traceable. America, Britain, and Japan already operate such systems in their different ways. Korea need not copy any of them outright — but it is time, at least, to escape the one-line mode of thought that says “it is e-commerce, therefore prohibited.”

A law that makes contact-lens use safe is necessary. Opticians' expertise is necessary; regular eye exams are necessary; strong enforcement against illegal medical-device sales is necessary. But none of these necessities adds up to the conclusion that buying one more box of the same lenses must require walking into an optician's shop.

What the law must protect is not a particular mode of selling. It is the people's eyes.

Then let us protect the eyes. Require proper examination, proper management, proper traceability, and hold sellers who sell wrongly to account. And to the consumer who has met every one of those safety conditions — return the freedom to choose where to spend their own money on their own lenses.

It is time to look again at Article 12 of the Medical Service Technologists Act.

Change the law that bans online contact-lens sales into a law that manages online contact-lens sales safely.

That is not abolishing regulation — it is advancing it.

#ConstitutionalReform #ABetterKorea