According to Reuters, South Korea will soon launch a pilot project using artificial intelligence (AI), facial recognition and tens of thousands of CCTV cameras to track the movements of people infected with Covid-19, regardless of the situation. despite concerns about invasion of privacy.
According to the plan submitted by the city of Bucheon to the Ministry of Science and Technology of Information and Communications (ICT) of Korea, the surveillance system will use AI algorithms and facial recognition technology to analyze the scene. Recordings are collected by more than 10,820 CCTV cameras. The system will track the movements of the infected person, who they are in close contact with and whether they are wearing a mask.
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The surveillance system will use AI algorithms and facial recognition technology to analyze footage collected by more than 10,820 CCTV cameras. Reuters |
Not only in Korea, now governments around the world have turned to use new technology and expanded legal power to prevent Covid-19 infection. According to a report in March 2021 by Columbia Law School in New York (USA), China, India, Poland, Japan, Russia and some US states have implemented, or at least tested, identification systems. face to track people infected with corona virus.
According to Bucheon officials, the surveillance system will reduce stress for tracing teams, which are already overworked in a city of more than 800,000 people, and help use them effectively. and more precise. South Korea already has a high-tech contact tracing system that collects credit card records, cell phone location data and CCTV footage, as well as other personal information. However, the country still has to rely on a large number of epidemiological investigators to trace and contact suspected cases of Covid-19.
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Currently, the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT has no plans to expand the project to the national level. The main purpose of the system is to digitize some manual tasks. The surveillance system in Bucheon can monitor 10 people simultaneously for 5 to 10 minutes, cutting down on the time it takes manual work to monitor one person by half an hour to an hour. Bucheon City received 1.6 billion won (approximately 1.36 million USD) from the Ministry of Science and ICT and spent 500 million won of the city budget on the monitoring system project.
Concerns about human rights
While much of the public supports tracking methods, human rights advocates and some South Korean lawmakers are concerned about the government’s ability to store and exploit data far beyond epidemic needs. .
However, according to the Bucheon official, there are no privacy concerns because the system will create a mosaic effect that covers the face of someone who is not the subject of tracking. “There is no privacy issue here because the patient tracking system is confirmed based on the Infectious Diseases Prevention and Control Act,” the Bucheon city official said.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KDCA) also agreed that the use of this technology is legal, as long as it is used within the scope of the disease prevention and control law. The AI-powered facial recognition scanning scheme comes as South Korea is testing a host of other uses of the controversial technology, from detecting child abuse to providing police protection. .
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