Surveillance, Safety, and Scandal

-- By HyewonKim - 23 Oct 2024

Introduction

During the COVID-19 outbreak, South Korea was widely commended for its efficient and effective response. South Korea and the United States both reported their first case in January 2020 but had completely different trajectories moving forward. By September 2020, South Korea had logged only 23,000 cases while the United States had an average of over 40,000 new cases a day. The reason for this vast difference? Surveillance.

Surveillance

South Korea’s main way of containing the outbreak was through a centralized, government-run contact tracing system. The government collected and used information about individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 and sent text alerts detailing where and when they visited a specific place. This level of detail of information was predominately gathered through cell phone and credit card use. For example, these texts would say “Patient #3 visited a wholesale supermarket in X borough on March 23 from 11:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.” or “Patient #4 had dinner at X restaurant at X mall from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.” These alerts would be sent to anyone in the local area as well as being available on the Ministry of Health and Welfare website.

In a highly technological and cashless society, it was incredibly easy for the South Korean government to utilize its credit card and bank transaction database to retroactively track where people went. People use their credit cards to pay for groceries at the supermarket, dinner at a restaurant, and especially to use public transportation in Seoul. In addition, cell phone providers in South Korea are required to log connections between cell phone towers and phones. The cell phone logs were able to confirm that Patient #3 visited the supermarket and Patient #4 at dinner at X restaurant. On top of tracking credit card transactions and cell phone logs, the government utilized its 1.7 million closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in public places to confirm additional details, such as whether Patient #3 and Patient #4 were wearing masks and were accompanied by others when visiting the supermarket or restaurant.

Safety

The highly detailed level of surveillance and specific information gathered from tracking credit card and cell phone use on top of CCTV data allowed the government to quickly quarantine and sterilize locations visited by patients. The public was also able to determine whether they were in proximity to patients and decide to get tested themselves or avoid specific areas that were recently visited by a patient.

While this level of surveillance may be shocking, the public opinion of South Korea has been overwhelmingly positive. COVID-19 fatalities in South Korea are a third of the global average. The US has about 341 COVID-19-related deaths per 100,000 population whereas South Korea has about 66 deaths. People were willing to sacrifice their privacy and submit themselves to extremely detailed tracking in exchange for not getting sick, not getting someone they love sick, and not dying.

Scandal

It’s no surprise the plethora of social issues that arise from publishing extremely detailed activity of patients. For example, an alert would say “Male, 58, an employee at a bank passed by X area and visited a hotel between X times, and then went to X movie theater.” Someone living in the area may be able to take their pieces of information and figure out that this is Mr. Kim who works at KB Bank. But Mr. Kim is married, so why did he go to a hotel? He must be having an extramarital affair. A similar case where speculation of someone having an extramarital affair arose from an alert stating that a male shared a meal with his sister-in-law. Why was he meeting his sister-in-law without his wife? It’s weird for someone to be so close to their sister-in-law.

The public was able to apply their own personal standards of a “good husband” or “good person” when reading these alerts. In addition to the stigma of being a COVID-19 patient even after recovery, patients were subject to social scrutiny and unrealistic standards of the South Korean public. Why did a nurse visit so many places in a short amount of time when she should have been more careful as a nurse? Why did Patient X go clubbing when they should be more cautious during the COVID-19 outbreak?

It’s questionable whether there are any lessons about individual privacy and the dangers of surveillance arising from the South Korean government’s contact tracing program. The majority of the South Korean population is largely unopposed to the attack on their privacy and values their safety over privacy. If this had happened in a more individualistic country like the United States and Australia, there’s no doubt that individuals would have complained about the government's infringement of various freedoms. In a collectivist country like South Korea, this era of extreme surveillance and contact tracing is seen more as a necessary action than a necessary evil. If one country is able to accept attacks on privacy and personal freedom as a norm, then it raises the question of whether the value of privacy is society-dependent.

Sources

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51733145

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronavirus-south-korea-tracking-apps/2020/03/13/2bed568e-5fac-11ea-ac50-18701e14e06d_story.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/coronavirus-tracking-app-cheating-partners-married-south-korea-affair-a9514996.html

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/02/849535944/south-koreas-tracking-of-covid-19-patients-raises-privacy-concerns

https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2020/10/12/parti-covid-19-contact-tracing-why-south-koreas-success-is-hard-to-replicate/

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-surveillance-technology-powered-south-koreas-covid-19-response/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/651509/south-korea-cctv-cameras/

https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230524000629

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality