Is the Safety of Your "Friend" Your REAL Concern?

How does it feel to know that you may be under constant watch? And how does it feel to know that your cellular phone is what’s enabling that very observer to know your location? All of this is possible through the use of a cellular phone service for which the user pays a monthly fee: the GPS Location Finder service. Believe it or not, in South Korea, cellular phone Location Finder Service—more commonly referred to as “Friend Locator”—is quite widely used by cellphone users.

In order to use this service, both people must consent to allowing the other person to gain location-related information. In other words, people need to be “service friends” with one another in order to see on one’s cellphone the other person’s current location. Being “friends” is not at all difficult: once you request “friendship” to a person, that person will be notified of this through a text message, and by pressing the corresponding number on the dial pad—1 for accept and 2 for reject—you two will either become friends or remain “un-friended.” Due to the ease of such “friendship”, married couples sometimes establish such friendship without the other person knowing. For example, when your husband is fast asleep, you can request to be friends, and you can accept the request text message on your husband’s phone. This can be done without your husband’s knowing, and you can constantly check what your husband is up to when he’s not home!

Typical users of this “Friend Locator” service are parents, who are protective of their children and wish to be informed every once in a while where their child is, and couples who are curious about their spouses or boyfriend/girlfriend’s whereabouts. Although not much question has been raised regarding the issue of using Friend Locator and invasion of the cellphone bearers’ privacy, it is an issue that must not be overlooked. Despite the good intentions with which such service was initially provided to the public, “Friend Locator” is undoubtedly being misused at times in order to “satisfy” the user’s mistrust in the “friend” and is consequently, invading the “friend’s” privacy. The South Korean government should limit the use of “Friend Locator” to crime-related issues such as kidnapping.

Technology, although it provides us with useful information, is prone to misuse through social shaping. We, as users, must be aware not to take part in such act and to prevent such from happening.

Do Criminals Deserve Privacy?

In September 2008, the government of South Korea allowed the Ministry of Justice to place electronic anklets on criminals’ ankles, once the criminals finish their terms in the jail. The electronic anklets track the exact location of the criminals at all times in order to reduce the probability of their second convictions of crimes. The Ministry of Justice is now trying to expand the use of this tracking device to drug traffickers and criminal suspects. Privacy advocates argue for the privacy issues of this Real-Time Locating Service (RTLS) device. They argue that not only the criminals’, but also their family’s privacy is being violated by this device. However, the Ministry of Justice asserts that the number of second convictions significantly diminished after the electronic anklet is introduced.

How far is technology interfering with people's privacy? To crimainals deserve privacy? Of course the electronic anklets will reduce the number of crimes, but it is imprisoning criminals in another form of jail for the rest of their lives. How do you measure the cost of losing the freedom? We believe that expanding the use of this devise will expose the entire country to a new level of government scrutiny of people's lives. This tracking device can be re-created and may interfere our lives in a different form. Technology facilitates many aspects of people’s lives. Therefore, we open our doors and generously welcome technology to come into our private spaces at all times. However, do we know when to close our doors?

Think Twice Before You Post!

On January 21, 2007, a famous South Korean singer Unee was found dead in her apartment, hanging from her bedroom door. It was a week before the release of her third album. During the interview, Unee’s mother told the press how her daughter had been suffering from a severe case of depression ever since her debut. Unee was the target of Korean netizens’ incessant, malicious online comments regarding her physical appearance; netizens continuously defamed Unee just because she looked artificial having done plastic surgeries numerous times. Simply put, netizens were the driving force of an innocent 24 year-old’s tragic death.

The core of the problem is that up until the July of 2007, Korean Ministry of Information and Communication (KMIC) did not implement real-name system on all popular websites, enabling netizens to post any type of comments without having to worry much about being responsible for what they wrote. South Korea has one of the largest Internet populations in the world, with the penetration rate reaching over 70 percent. The power of "netizen" has significantly grown over the decades. Unee is not the only victim of the netizens’ ill-natured online comments. As Internet users increased exponentially in recent years, several other South Korean stars committed suicide after suffering from depression, caused by the malignant comments posted by netizens.

Will the imposition of the Real-Name system solve the issues of cyber bullying? It will definitely improve the people's behavior in the short term. However, the government cannot change the issue; the people have to recognize and change their behaviors. We want to talk more about cyber bullying issues in our blog and what should be done to change people's thoughts. The real-name system does not completely take away people's privacy. Also, it gives netizens a bit more responsibility to what they say. However, in people's "Freedom of Speech" should also be respected. We will further discuss other cyber bullying instances caused in South Korea in our following blog postings.

-We envision a more healthy online interaction of netizens-

Welcome to Our Blog! :)

What percentage of your daily life is in the hands of technology? Are you in control of technology? Or, is technology controlling you? Technology is with us even during those moments when we think we are alone, in private.

We are Solbi Lee and Se-Jin Lee, sophomores at Cornell Hotel School. We came to make this blog for our Visionary Project, which was assigned in HA 2275, an Information Systems course. We will be covering the privacy issue of technology and technology’s effect on our lives—centered in the context of the South Korean society—in the upcoming postings.

A representative of Asia, South Korea is a country ranked one of the highest in terms of IT power, providing “most positive environment for IT firms in the world”. Technology, especially the Internet, is widely used in this particular country, and South Korea is greatly renowned for its high-tech gadgets and services. With so much technology being used in this country, it is not surprising that privacy issues—as well as the negative facets of technology (more like, the Internet)—are constantly brought into light.

Some of the topics we will cover in later postings are:

· Power of Netizens

· Pirating of Media· Wrong Uses of Cellphones

· Suicide Internet Cafés

· Implementation of Real-Name System

By actively engaging in reading our to-be-weekly-updated blog, we hope you take part in developing and shaping your own thoughts and interests in technology and in how both the society and technology is mutually influencing each other.

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To what extent should technology be part of, or interfere in, our lives? And where do we see all of this heading towards? These are the questions we will be addressing in our following posts. Stay tuned! :)