The smart city as time-space cartographer in COVID-19 control: the South Korean strategy and democratic control of surveillance technology

ABSTRACT

While the US, UK, France, Italy, and many other countries ended up implementing complete lockdown after tens of thousands of deaths from COVID-19, South Korea kept factories and offices running, flattened the curve, and maintained a low mortality rate. Extensive media coverage has focused on South Korea’s testing capacity as the primary reason, but there has been little discussion of the vital role of the smart city. In this paper, we describe how smart city technologies form a crucial part of disease control in South Korea, explain the social conditions for the extensive use of smart city technology, and offer critical insights into contemporary discussions on the issue of smart cities and surveillance.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• Smart city
• patient tracing
• data protection
• surveillance technology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Jung Won Sonn acknowledges support from the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant, funded by the Korean Government [NRF-2017S1A3A2066514].