ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Korean society negotiated with the state to protect citizens’ public health by surrendering parts of their private (bio)information. When the WHO declared a pandemic on 11th March 2020, Korea was unable to escape from this global emergency. The Korean government launched a series of containment policies from aggressive test and trace to isolating potential patients without implementing a brutal mandatory lockdown. The key policy for containing the infectious disease is tracing detailed movements of confirmed patients and their contacts. This aggressive policy of tracing patients’ movements by using monitoring usages of credit cards, individual movements of mobile phones and sharing bioinformation of testing specimen become a subject of controversy amongst academics. Some western scholars provide critical assessments that people in East Asian countries have acquiescent acceptance of the government’s use of personal (bio)information. This behavioural trait originated from the strong Confucian tradition which operates a different type of power. This study unfolds the way of interpretation is based on a western centred view. Instead, it elucidates that people’s acceptance of handing over parts of personal information is the result of recent political experiences (e.g. movements for democratization) and repeated outbreaks of infectious diseases (e.g. SARS, MERS, Foot-and-Mouth). In the course of democratization, people tend to negotiate with the governing authority to achieve their security. Moreover, the disease experience has shaped a specific way of controlling diseases. This chapter outlines that the specific way of policy implementation needs to understand in a specific context.
