South Korea: Democracy, innovation, and surveillance

Chung, S.; Lee, S.

This chapter explores South Korea’s responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on its innovative approach and regulatory background in implementing the so-called “test-track-treat strategy.” Years earlier, South Korea revised and introduced a regulatory framework to allow for effective responses and interventions against infectious disease outbreaks in the aftermath of its traumatic experiences with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in 2015. The chapter looks at how the amendments to regulations related to infectious diseases in the aftermath of the MERS outbreak have worked to South Korea’s advantage in fighting Covid-19. However, despite South Korea’s success in “flattening the curve, " its use of large-scale testing, and information and communication technology (ICT) to track patients raises controversial human rights and privacy issues. The extensive use of surveillance technologies to track and monitor individuals has the potential to infringe upon and limit fundamental human rights. The chapter then illuminates the dilemma facing South Korea between democratic governance and surveillance technology and discusses how to reconcile, through a South Korean lens, potential tensions between individual freedom and public health in a state of emergency. © the several contributors 2021.