MERS Mobile Surveillance In Korea As Extension Of Social Practice: Some Takeaways For The Development Community

Picking up on a post by Panoply Digital Co-Director Ronda Zelezny-Green on the South Korean government mandating monitoring apps for youth in Android-based mobile technology, I wanted to extend that discussion a bit to demonstrate how pervasive this monitoring can be and particularly how it can be justified, or conceptualized, under appeals to public safety. The image (taken a week or so ago) helps to illustrates all of this a bit: a relatively empty subway car during rush hour on my way to work as most opted to stay home in light of MERS. Before we plunge in, I think it is important to mention that South Korea is not alone in this surveillance. Clearly, this is an ongoing and altogether pervasive issue in many countries. Some are more overt about the process; some are more ubiquitous and, therefore, seemingly implicit. Essentially, the only real distinction becomes at what point in the process is online behavior affected: at the point of seeking (blocked content) or at the point of consuming (surveillance). There are many, much smarter than myself, who would be able to expand on these distinctions, but my point is this: using South Korea as a case study serves to illustrate not necessarily the uniqueness of their situation, but rather how culturally specific and nuanced security and surveillance can be.

So in Korea this has recently extended to mobile surveillance for the purposes of combating or controlling Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). The South Korean government has announced that they will (and presumably have already started) monitoring those suspected of possibly coming into contact with MERS through mobile technology. Ostensibly the purpose is to ensure those under quarantine stay quarantined. Part of the difficulty that emerged from South Korean efforts to contain MERS resulted specifically from those suspected of being exposed to MERS deciding to break or ignore their own quarantine. So there are social dimensions, social dimensions flavored with cultural traits, that are affecting this emergency response. The South Korean government has bypassed these social constraints by simply tracking the phones of those they suspect of having or being exposed to MERS. I am not here to criticize that decision as seen from the perspective of disaster management. It may very well be the correct choice in light of the alternative; the unknown, untreatable elements of MERS are indeed cause for concern for all of us that live here (I am writing to you from Seoul). Yet, there are side effects in fields related to my own and Panoply work that we feel need championing. Privacy, freedom to learn, and freedom to socialize and exchange ideas; these freedoms are all strained with pervasive monitoring lacking transparency.

To begin, this monitoring of mobile activity is an implicit acknowledgement that such monitoring was indeed possible (on a person by person basis) and presumably already occurring. Neither of these acknowledgements are revelatory as technological advancements in GPS spell greater and greater surveillance. What this does spell in the Korean situation, itself at least partly prone to censorship, is how the balance between the rights to opportunity and safety, particularly in children, in mobile technology, and particularly as it applies to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, is manifested. We see pervasive monitoring presented merely as an extension of parenting (Smart Sheriff is the name of the app that Ronda discussed) or as an appeal to public safety and order (the MERS mobile tracking), all logical (to some) extensions of the existing social construct and social contract. For a nation that is established in a particular hierarchy, made most evident through the myriad of social relationships that one must manage well beyond what we might experience in some countries (the US, the UK, etc.), this pervasive surveillance, while loathe to some, might be just a nuisance to others. Opinions vary, but the MERS situation accelerates these moves towards full surveillance and allows for greater reach and less oversight/transparency than ever before (truth be told, I am surprised they even announced their intentions to monitor MERS patients). Whether or not it is palatable is up to Koreans themselves.

What this does make clear for mobile learning or mobile for development work is the need, the absolute necessity, of not only localizing solutions, but acknowledging the social and cultural climate from which the technology itself emerged, from where the social practices emerged that governs its informal use, from where the legal and legislative practices emerged that more formally (and implicitly) governs its use, and whether or not the public is inclined to view this structure as palatable. If they find it acceptable, any solution becomes more a persuasive activity about public awareness and education to the dangers of overreach and surveillance. If I were to champion privacy and freedoms to learn and socialize free from monitoring in the Korean context, then I would begin with persuasion, education, or consensus building. If this monitoring proves less palatable in the local context, solutions can situate themselves in the existing activities of stakeholders to amplify their work. In the Korean context, I would aling my efforts with citizen watchdogs or advocacy groups already championing a freer, less monitored internet. If Koreans were increasingly frustrated with this monitoring and surveillance, as recent departures from KakaoTalk, the leading and home-grown messaging application, suggest) then I would seek to explore more secure and encrypted alternatives, such as Telegram. Yet, a solution that involves foisting a technology on an unwilling or unconvinced populace is more than worthless, it is condescending. Technologies are aggregations of social practices that are specific to the cultures from which they emerge; some are ambiguous enough to be useful beyond their country of origin. As those working in the development community, there is no excuse for not knowing the lay of the land and to know at which stage of awareness and activity a community is in regards to a perceived problem. Yes, I believe this type of surveillance is a problem; I also understand that this belief is toothless without a holistic understanding of the local context.