[Ip-health] SKGovernment seeks "Compulsory License" for digital insurance card technology

[Chung Hae-joo]

So is this the first time for a developing country to issue a compulsory 
license for "public non-commertial use"? 

This is very bad because this medical card is another big brother to South 
Korean people. All of SK citizens have their own id numbers and id cards, 
and it was digitalized several years ago with government's attempt to 
possess all South Korean people's fingerprints as computer files. It raised 
disputes in ethical perspective of regarding all of its citizen to be 
potential criminals, and also in privacy issues. Digital med-cards are even 
worse because they would include much more private information such as all 
the medical records of an individual.

It is the invention of Health ministry after suffering from the crisis of 
near bankruptcy of National Health Insurance budget. They invented it to 
enhance the accountability of medical services, but it is very probable 
that this digital card won't do anything about accountability and only used 
as a mean of infringement of privacy. Because the accountability can never 
be enhanced as long as health is considered as a commodity, in a 
extensively vigorous market with more than 90% of hospitals run privately, 
with 50% of direct out-of-pocket payment which gives way to corruption and 
greed.

Please overlook all the mistakes in translating this article into English. 
It was a kind of tough job since IT is not the field I am familiar with. 
The following is not the whole article.

=======================================

Digital Times

SK Government, seeks "Compulsory License" for digital insurance card 
technology

Commitee for Health Insurance Card(Chair KyongHo Lee) considers to receive 
all the source cord stored in ic-chip of digital insurance card from card 
solution company to ensure stable execution of "Digital Health Insurance 
Card System".

On 29th, an official said, "It is proposed to secure the source cord needed 
for the government to issue digical med-cards, to prepare for the case the 
company stops providing the technology for some reason such as bankruptcy. 
So the working group of the card are now considering the way to apply 
"compulsory license" in intellectual property law to the source 
technologies of digital med-card. 

The companies show negative responses saying, "It is not easy for 
individual companies to disclose their unique "source cord" and especially 
disclosures of original technologies for the card is what has to be 
permitted by head offices in foreign countries. It won't be easy."

An official who takes charge on technical support for the digital health 
card says "the Compulsory license is not decided yet. What we are doing now 
is only reviewing the source cords of card solutions of the companies, 
which want to participate in the work"




Hae-joo Chung Á¤ÇýÁÖ

Director, EquiPharm:Project,
People's Health Coalition for Equitable Society (Seoul, South Korea)
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+82-16-523-2155(mobile),+82-2-774-8773(fax)
peasnhr@jinbo.net,peasnhr@hotmail.com 

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 If I could leave my footprints in dreams, 
 the stone road in front of my house would have turned into sand.
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 for the 2nd anniversary of a political prisoner's death (11/12/99)
 who was imprisoned for more than 30 years 
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