From: Phil Agre <pagre@weber.ucsd.edu> [I have enclosed, with the author's permission, a letter from Joohoan Kim <sjokim@icg.stwing.upenn.edu> raising alarms about a proposed national electronic identification card in South Korea. JK encourages you to repost the information where appropriate.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help@weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= [I don't have the original header.] Hi, all, I would like to alarm you that another Big-Brother is coming with its most ambitios dream in South Korea: The Electronic Identification Card, which will be issued to every citizen as a mandatory within a year or so. The Electronic Identification Card project is a part of South Korean government's ultra-speed communication network building project. Managed by the Ministry of Domestic Affairs, the US $413 million project is being carried out in cooperation with the Korea Computer Institute. Once the project is completed in 1997, every Koreans of 18 years or older will be assigned a single integrated circuit (IC) card which will include photo and all kinds of personal digitized information: current universal ID card (currently every adult Korean has a photo ID issued by the Government), driver's license, medical insurance card, national pension card, proof of residence, and scanned fingerprints (!) among other things. (I don't know how many "demoratic" governments are collecting fingerprints of their whole citizens.) DACOM, a big telecommunication company in Korea, which won the bidding for the project, describes it as following: "As 8,000 characters worth of information can be stored on the single credit card-sized card, personal information needed for issuing official documents and certificates can be accessed promptly by public offices, institutions, companies, and banks or other organizations. The Ministry of Domestic Affairs has announced that the new cards will be distributed starting in January 1997. Full implementation is scheduled to be completed by early 1998. While there are some nations in which drivers' licenses are used in place of ID cards, this project will be the first system in the world which combines multiple functions onto one card. Once distribution is completed, the card will greatly boost efficiency, saving the government US$1.3 billion and enabling it to eventually reduce its work force by 5,000 employees." (Quoted from: http://bora.dacom.co.kr/bora/dacom/news-clips.html) As you can see, they have no concerns about protection of personal information and privacy. True, they are a company making money from that project, and probably we shouldn't expect any criticism against the Project. The problem is, however, that almost all of the South Korean news media are talking the same thing about it: the "efficiency" and the "convenience" that the Electronic Identification Card might bring about. I tried to find critical arguments against the project via a comprehensive news data base in Korea, but I could not find any. I also checked many web sites of non-governmental organizations and socio-progressive groups in Korea, but none of them have raised the issue yet. They do not seem to realize the suspending dangers of their own privacy and human rights. Despite obvious and serious danger in protecting personal information and privacy , there is just no social discourse concerning the issue. I have also checked relevant laws (especially newly approved communication-related laws) through the database of the Korean Government, but there seems to be no clear legal basis for the project. The project has been mentioned only in the "10 Plans for Efficient National Informatization," announced by the Ministry of Information and Communication. But the City of Seoul already started to issue the Card as a "test" in March. The Ministry of Domestic Affairs said, as they were issuing the "test" version of the Card to 1,000 citizens, "we will prepare relevant laws and regulations," implying that they are doing the project "before" (and probably "above") the law. Currently, I am writing columns and news stories for "Sisa Jouranl," the weekly news magazine in South Korea, which decided to deal with the Card project as a special topic as I suggested. To write a critical article against the Project, I am starting to gather info about the similar cases, if there is any. And I hope to hear from you about some theoretical and practical knowledge about the similar issues; I would like to quote your opinions in my article, if you allow me to do so. Right after the publication of the news article, I will try to contact various NGO's in South Korea to inform them of the importance of the issue. And I will try to organize an anti-electronic ID Card movement in the cyberspace, if that is necessary. I am very happy to meet you in the cyberspace, who really concerns the privacy issues in the computerized age. Thank you very much. Sincerely, Joohan ****************************************** Joohoan Kim Ph.D. Candidate 3620 Walnut Street Annenberg School for Communication University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104 sjokim@icg.stwing.upenn.edu http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~sjokim/home.html