From: "E. ALLEN SMITH" <EALLENSMITH@ocelot.Rutgers.EDU>
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 15:27:46 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: South Korean ID Card
Message-ID: <01I807XIOJLY9JD2RG@mbcl.rutgers.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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.]

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[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