Starting next year, international adoptees of Korean descent can collect and register their genetic information from where they reside in order to search for their birth parents.

The National Police Agency and the Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that 34 South Korean diplomatic missions in 14 countries, including the United States, France and Sweden, will launch such services starting January first, 2020.

An official from the police agency said the new service simplifies the process for international adoptees who, until now, had to visit South Korea to register their information.

Since many of the adoptees are believed to have once been missing children in South Korea, police have already set up genetic information data of families of missing children.

If there's a match between an adoptee and a family of a missing child or children, police can arrange a possible meeting between the two sides.

Since the end of the Korean War, some 170-thousand Korean children were adopted by families overseas in 14 countries, out of which some 30-thousand are believed to have no record of a birth family.