Hwan Seungwon has ears in more than three thousands homes across the country via the ‘smart-speakers’ Aria. He has pie-charts, graphs and maps that reflect spoken keywords and search habits for these homes. Hwan, however, is not snooping around for a covert operation. In fact, he is looking out for the safety of senior citizens across South Korea who are being monitored via voice-enabled, Aleka-like smart speakers. Aria. The smart speakers by SK Telecom launched in 2019, is an experimental remote care service which is coming in handy currently, to look after the health of the senior citizens.

“We closely monitor for signs of danger, whether they are more frequently using search words that indicate rising states of loneliness or insecurity,” said Hwang, director of a social enterprise that handles SK Telecom’s services as reported by the Associated Press. Trigger words lead to a recommendation for a visit by public health officials.

Aria listens to over 3,200 Koreans, 24 hours a day. Most of the people who have allowed this technology into their homes are above the age of 70 and living along. The device helps elders by processing voice commands for internet searches, music, news. Furthermore, it has been trained to identify distress words and sounds, as well as a lookout for signs of loneliness. The device periodically also ‘tests’ the memory and cognitive abilities of the senior citizens in the form of quizzes. Any variation in the data would automatically trigger local health officials to take the needed action. The technology has a lot of potentials to help the local and state governments in Korea as the country struggles to prevent senior citizens, who form 15% of the country’s population, from diseases, mental degradation and the worse, dying alone without help. 

Around 200 senior citizens living in Seoul’s Yangcheon district are being monitored by the district officials via the Aria. The social workers have an app installed in their phones that reflect data - keywords, graphs and maps. The health officials visit the senior citizens’ homes or calls if they haven’t used the device for over 24 hours. 

Company experts say that the demand will double by year-end as the Korean government seeks ways to continue providing welfare services while cutting back human contact to avoid the spread of COVID-19 as well as take preventive measures for future virus attacks. However, the company’s clientele has not been able to utilise the gathered data well because of the lack of clear guidelines for handling health data on private networks. 

The Korean government has announced the post-COVID-19 economic recovery will be heavily dependent on data-driven industries. As reported by the Associated Press, the officials are preparing regulations for revised data laws that lawmakers passed in January after months of wrangling. They aim to allow businesses greater freedom in collecting and analysing anonymous personal data without seeking individual consent. 

While optimists say that the revised laws will bolster artificial intelligence’s growth in financial and healthcare services, activists like Oh Byoung-il say that the changes could mean increased privacy infringement without putting robust safeguards in place. “An appropriate control system needs to be baked into the process, to make decisions on data access based on necessity and sensitivity and restrict access to information that isn’t really needed,” he said to the Associated Press. A faction of doctors also has resisted the legalisation of telemedicine due to data security concerns and a negative impact on smaller hospitals.