Sources Contact Advanced Search Tutorials

An Interest In:

Web News this Week

Search Archive

Some of Our Sources

View All Sources

Help Webnuz

Referal links:

June 8, 2020 10:34 am

In Data-Driven South Korea, AI is Monitoring 3,200 Senior Citizens

The search habits of thousands of South Korean senior citizens "are being monitored through virtual-assistant smart speaker technology," writes Slashdot reader shirappu. The AP reports that around 3,200 people across the country, "mostly older than 70 and living alone, have so far allowed the SK Telecom speakers to listen to them 24 hours a day since the service launched in April 2019." It's part of a larger look at whether technology has become too invasive, in a country where health authorities have also "aggressively used credit-card records, surveillance videos and cellphone data to find and isolate potential virus carriers."Locations where patients went before they were diagnosed are published on websites and released through cellphone alerts. Smartphone tracking apps are used to monitor around 30,000 individuals quarantined at home... [E]ntertainment venues in Seoul, Incheon and Daejeon will be required to register customers with smartphone QR codes so they can be easily located if needed. The requirement expands nationwide on June 10. But there's a dark side. People here have often managed to trace back the online information to the unnamed virus carriers, exposing embarrassing personal details and making them targets of public contempt... President Moon Jae-in's administration has said data-driven industries will be critical in boosting a pandemic-hit economy. Officials are preparing regulations for revised data laws that lawmakers passed in January after months of wrangling. They aim to allow businesses greater freedom in collecting and analyzing anonymous personal data without seeking individual consent. If they work as intended, optimists say the laws would allow artificial intelligence to truly take off and pave the way for highly customized financial and health care services after they start in August. But activist Oh Byoung-il said the changes could bring excessive privacy infringements unless robust safeguards are installed. "Companies will always have an endless thirst for data, but you can't give it to them all," he said.

Slashdot

Slashdot was originally created in September of 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda. Today it is owned by Geeknet, Inc..

More About this Source Visit Slashdot