Bucheon to pilot facial-recognition system to track COVID-19 cases

The authorities of Bucheon (South Korea) will test a facial-recognition system to track the movements of people infected with the coronavirus. The project is due to start in January 2022, Reuters reports.

Under the plan, the system uses artificial-intelligence algorithms and facial-recognition technology to analyse footage gathered from more than 10,820 CCTV cameras. The programme can also track an infected person’s movements, contacts, and use of a mask.

According to a Bucheon city administration spokesperson, the system will reduce the burden on tracking teams in a city of more than 800,000 residents and increase their efficiency. The programme can monitor up to ten people simultaneously and cut the search time from one hour to 5-10 minutes.

“Analyzing a single frame of surveillance footage can take several hours. Using visual-recognition technology will allow this analysis to be completed in an instant,” said Bucheon Mayor Chan Deog-cheon during the bid for project funding.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said that there are currently no plans to expand the system to national level. According to them, the aim of the project is to digitise part of the manual work performed by contact tracers.

The city received 1.6 billion won ($1.36 million) from the Ministry of Science and ICT for the deployment of the system. Local Bucheon authorities also allocated 500 million won ($422,000) from the local budget.

Some South Korean lawmakers have raised concerns that the government would retain and continue to use such data after the pandemic.

“The government’s plan to become ‘Big Brother’ under the pretext of COVID is not a totalitarian idea,” said Pak Dae-cheol, an opposition deputy in the lower house of parliament.

He argued that monitoring the population at taxpayers’ expense without their consent is wrong.

The Bucheon authorities rejected privacy concerns. They said the system overlays a mosaic of faces for all who are not the subject of monitoring.

Earlier in October, Ukrainian authorities announced plans to deploy cameras with mask-recognition in the country’s largest shopping centres.

In July, authorities in the Chinese city of Ruili linked facial-recognition technology to citizens’ health codes to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

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