A Catholic church in Songpa , southern Seoul , requires worshippers to scan smartphone QR codes before attending service . ( Yonhap ) Being confirmed with COVID - 19 in South Korea means giving up autonomy over your personal data . Once you are diagnosed , local officials have the authority to look through your cellphone , credit card history and closed - circuit camera recordings of recent visits in a process known as contact tracing . Speed is of the essence when tracking down the contacts of infected people , health officials have said . The aim is to screen and isolate those who have had potential exposure as quickly as possible , before they pass on the disease to other people . Now the Korean government is seeking to expedite those steps even further , with the adoption of a QR code - based tracing system . Starting Wednesday , people wishing to visit places designated as having a high contagion risk , such as bars , nightclubs and karaoke lounges , are required to scan smartphone QR codes , generated by IT giant Naver , before entering . The information attached to the QR codes includes full names , phone numbers , when the visits were made and for how long . The Ministry of Health and Welfare says no third parties can access the data , which is anonymized and managed by the state - operated Social Security Information Service , then discarded in four weeks . Keeping up with speed , scale of pandemicSeongdong - gu , a district in eastern Seoul , is among the first in the country to deploy the technology . It has used QR codes at 187 venues since May 15 , nearly a month before their nationwide introduction . In fact , the district office has developed its own NFC tags and QR codes that are designed to collect even more details , such as whether you ’ ve recently been in a place where an active case was detected . A Seongdong - gu official said the digital contact tracing tools are expected to cut down a huge amount of work for those on COVID - 19 duty . “ A day ’ s work can now be done in about half an hour , ” he said . As the pandemic continues , contact tracing officers are having to deal with a mounting workload at the expense of their health . A director at the Health Ministry collapsed from a brain hemorrhage in March while on duty , and a Jeonju City official died in February following successive night shifts . Furthermore , not everyone willingly seeks testing and gives accurate information during epidemiological surveys . The QR code visitor logs will minimize the painstaking job of verifying the accounts of patients and encouraging their contacts to come forth and get tested . The government stresses that its handling of citizens ’ information is backed by the legal framework formed after the Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak in 2015 . Kim Il - jae , acting chairperson of the Personal Information Protection Commission under the Interior Ministry , said in an online Asia - Pacific Privacy Authorities conference held Tuesday that the legal basis for Korea ’ s “ processing of patient information ” was established during the MERS outbreak to increase transparency . Dispelling privacy concerns , he said the legislation governing how personal data is handled by the government when a contagious disease surfaces was supported by “ social consensus ” and “ public demand . ” Asked how secure the data was , a Naver communications officer said the company was in a tricky position and that the question would be better addressed by the government . Troubling precedent for privacyBut efficiencies aside , the high - tech surveillance system is sparking concerns over possible violations of privacy and other rights . The World Health Organization ’ s Director - General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a Monday briefing that while contact tracing is a critical element of the COVID - 19 response , employing digital technology “ can pose challenges to privacy , ” stressing “ more evidence is needed about the effectiveness of these tools for contact tracing . ” The legal grounds for instituting the new monitoring tools are not clear enough and are subject to dispute , according to attorney Cho Woo - sun . She said there are no stipulations in the laws on infectious disease control that give the government the power to make entry logs at public places mandatory , or collect personal information without consent . “ The Administrative Procedures Act states all exercise of public authority should have concrete legal backing . Penalizing facilities for failing to observe the use of   QR codes will likely lead to contentions about its foundation in law , ” she said . Privacy advocate Kelly Kha - yeun Kim , who is an attorney at nongovernmental organization Open Net , fighting suppression of internet freedom , said the current standard for what constitutes a “ high - risk ” venue was vague . “ The businesses and establishments instructed to use the QR codes are mostly recent sites of infections . If similar outbreaks occur at cafes , restaurants and in other everyday places , the scope of surveillance can widen anytime , ” she said . Some of the country ’ s top coronavirus experts say the QR code IDs are excessive , even from a public health point of view . Preventive medicine specialist Dr . Choi Jae - wook , who heads the Korean Medical Association ’ s Scientific Review Committee , said medical professionals were not consulted or involved in the government decision . “ Safeguarding public health has to be a top priority , yes . But it ’ s rather worrisome how these measures are applied indiscriminately without due procedure and in the absence of apparent boundaries , ” he said . Infectious disease specialist Dr . Kim Woo - joo of Korea University Hospital in Guro , southern Seoul , said the widely cited revisions to infectious disease control laws after the MERS outbreak failed to offer a rationale before they were passed . Kim , who orchestrated the disease control efforts at the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the time , said he “ remained unsure of enforcing panopticon - like surveillance methods in the name of public health . ” Between virus safety and liberal valuesIn a response to The Korea Herald ’ s email inquiries , Asia analyst Gordon Chang said the tracking measures the Korean government has recently implemented are “ especially troubling . ” “ In any societies , measures intended to prevent the spread of disease … will restrict personal freedom , ” he said , but that in free countries , leaders are at least “ restrained by courts and popular pressure ” and there exist “ a constant balancing of the personal freedom of citizens and societal need for prevention . ” Chang said the measures may not have been needed had the country responded sooner . “ Korea has been lauded for its measures to control COVID - 19 . Those measures would have been largely unnecessary if Moon has adopted the common - sense measure of barring arrivals from China instead of saying , as he did in early February , that Koreans should ‘ share our neighbor ’ s suffering , ’” he said . Leif - Eric Easley , a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University , said in an email reply that “ Korea ’ s contact tracing and quarantine policies are at the edge of public safety - civil liberties tradeoff . ” He said success would have to entail both -- “ whether the virus is contained and whether abuse of personal data is prevented . ” “ Korea has been internationally recognized for dealing effectively with the pandemic . So at stake is not only the health of Korea ’ s democracy but also international best practices for defeating COVID - 19 , ” he said . While experts sound alarms , Koreans are relatively less resistant to sharing their data with the government , according to a Realmeter survey . A survey of 500 adults conducted May 27 shows over 70 percent of the respondents saying they support the QR code - based tracking as opposed to 16 percent who said they are against it . Sociologist Shin Jin - wook at Chung - Ang University said popular support and constitutionality did not always align together , and that approval of the majority did not mean something was democratic . “ The government has a mandate to protect the lives of its citizens . In a pandemic , decision makers face tough choices of restricting civil liberties to stem the spread of a disease , ” he said . “ And these restrictive actions cannot take a top - down approach , they need to be deliberated and debated out in a public sphere . ” Explaining Koreans ’ seeming acquiescence , Shin said peer pressure played a role in evoking compliance from citizens . “ Officials have been posting travel histories and personal details of the patients , which led people to act as if they were in a public gaze , and exercise more caution , ” he said . Transnational historian Lim Jie - hyun at Sogang University said finding the right balance between medical laissez - faire as seen in herd immunity strategy and near - totalitarian control was key . “ Emergencies tend to give rise to authoritarian powers in favor of dealing with most pressing tasks of the moment , ” he said . “ Because there is implicit public consent , such controls are imbued with false appearance of legitimacy . People acceding to relinquishing their own rights in the face of an unprecedented plight is what is truly frightening . ” By Kim Arin ( arin @ heraldcorp . com ) [ 네이버 에서 코리아 헤럴드 구독 ] ▶ KH Podcast    ▶ KH Video <ⓒ KoreaHerald ( www . koreaherald . com ) 무단 전재 및 재 배포 금지 >