TRANSCRIPT

I was asked to talk about social transformation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It's a broad topic. I have decided to kind of narrow my conversation down to focusing mainly on the North Korean police state because I think that is one of the “canary in the coal mine” issues. Because if you're going to get a major transformation in North Korea, because of major technologies that are coming on board in the 21st century, you first have to get past the North Korean police state.

How is it going to internalize or not internalize these technologies? And do these technologies have the ability to actually transform the North Korean regime economically, socially, politically?

So when I talk about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or the 4IR, which I'll refer to it in this talk, it's a concept that is held currently as the umbrella term to frame and examine the impact of emerging technologies on all aspects of society of the 21st century. Examples of these technologies are artificial intelligence, fifth-generation mobile networks, three-dimensional printing, cloud computing, robotics, drones, virtual reality, altered reality, the Internet of Things, genomics, biometrics, and blockchain.

The speed, scope, and scale of technological advance and diffusion of the 4IR is quite unlike anything the world has ever seen before. It is evolving at an exponential rate and transforming virtually all aspects of societal life across the globe.

These technologies are commonly included in the list of present-day emerging technologies anticipated to provide human societies with the means to overcome global challenges like disease, poverty, and ignorance. That's the good part. There's also the growing conversation about the darker corners of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

As we all know, technology can not only contribute to mankind's growth and development—it also can be used to keep mankind under control. In the famous novel 1984 by George Orwell, the protagonist Winston, who is part of the state, carefully keeps his back to the Telescreen in his living room to stay out of detection, in fear of certain punishment as he begins to write in his diary. The fear of the Big Brother watching is not only new but, for this generation living in the age of the 4IR, the dystopian masterpiece may have one feeling an eerie sense of familiarity and foreboding.

The rapid development of new technologies in some countries could enable, or is already are enabling, totalitarian-style surveillance and control to silently creep into everyday life. In countries such as China and Russia, we have seen extensive use of ever more sophisticated surveillance systems to enforce order, to be able to track the movements of the populations, [and suppress] dissent and democratic challenges to their power. They also have provided a global blueprint for how digital technologies can be utilized toward these ends.

My talk today sits on top of some very interesting work that is being done on this topic by [organizations] such as 38 North, Daily NK, and the Asia-Pacific Center. So many of the things that I'm going to be talking about today are already out there in the public realm and are [covered] in much more detail in papers that are put out by these and other organizations.

So I'll briefly examine how coercion, control, surveillance and punishment by the North Korean police state will change in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the AI Revolution. And I will ask, will new technologies make the Kim regime's control more effective? Or will they force eventual reforms and shifts in the North Korean society?

Q. What Does DPRK’s Existing Surveillance Network Look Like?

North Korea is already among the most tightly controlled and surveilled countries in the world. The state makes numerous demands on the people's work and free time, limits their ability to move unencumbered within their own country, dictates the media that they can consume, and restricts their freedom of speech. Citizens are constantly at risk of random and targeted inspections that can involve a complete search of their homes as well as their persons.

Much of the country's existing surveillance network relies on a massive network of human intelligence gathering and informants, much of which I described in my 2012 book Coercion, Control, Surveillance, and Punishment: A Guide to North Korea's Internal Security Apparatus. This network includes individuals from state security agencies, law enforcement, workplace supervisors, and Inminban leaders who monitor their communities. Some reports suggest that up to 1 in 20 North Koreans are involved in some way, shape, or form in the established surveillance system. This human-centric internal security system, however, leaves spaces uncovered where corruption occurs, and the state security turns a blind eye.

The question for the future is whether North Korea is satisfied with these blind spots. Will it embrace 4IR technology for security at the expense of other endeavors, such as its economy? It only has limited funds. Where is it going to put its money?

The North Korean government has declared the 21st century as the “IT Era.” North Korean leaders came to realize that their ultimate objective of building a powerful and prosperous nation could not be achieved without the introduction of information technologies into the people's economy.

Q. How Has DPRK Been Dealing with Digital Transformation?

Over the years, the regime has touted IT as a way to address nationwide challenges. North Korea amended Article 26 of its Constitution in April 2019 to add informatization to its core line of economic efforts, [along with] Juche-oriented, self-reliance, modernization, and scientization to achieve a socialist independent national economy.

COVID created an opportunity for North Korea to expand its use of these technologies, including facial recognition [in their surveillance system]. This technology enforced social distancing at places such as train stations, which was important during COVID, while helping the regime to fill in gaps in its internal security apparatus. This is a similar approach to the regime's digital transformation, [aimed at] dealing with the infiltration of outside information into North Korea.

In the past, the regime dealt with the spread of digitized media, a lot of it coming in through balloons from defector organizations in South Korea and being slipped over into the market system from China. They dealt with this spread of media proliferation across the country in a very direct way. They banned it. Well, they still ban it to a certain extent, but they've also become much more sophisticated in dealing with it. Just banning it was only a temporary and a very inefficient way of dealing with this proliferation.

In recent years, the regime has modified its approach by adopting the technology and deploying it in a controlled manner through a combination of tracking software, closed communication networks, constant monitoring, and widespread jamming. State security has created potentially potent vectors for remote surveillance at scale while limiting easy access to unwanted content.

As with the response to COVID, the regime has been able to spin this introduction of enhanced surveillance technology as a basic good for society. Surveillance does not stop with society; the regime is also watching itself. CCTVs, for example, are used to more widely surveil the security services in an apparent attempt to cut down on corruption and make Big Brother work more efficiently and effectively.

The bottom line [is that] if North Korea cannot have a total technological shutdown, they can at least make sure the parts that they do have work well and are synchronized with the old fashioned human-centric security.

Q. Can DPRK Police State Fully Embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

But can North Korea's police state fully embrace the 4IR? I would argue that it cannot.

North Korea is not a newcomer to many of the technologies that undergird the 4IR. Dating back to the 1990s, the regime has engaged in a number of projects that have touted early AI and machine learning, primarily to address nationwide challenges.

On the surface, it seems that the 4IR is something that fits well into Kim Jong Un's vision of the future, which is very technological and scientific in, at least, its presentation to the people. However, when we look at the future of the police state, it is not clear that the regime is fully capable and willing to take advantage of all that the 4IR has to offer.

On paper, the 4IR holds out the promise of realizing the perfect Orwellian state. In reality, this might be a bridge too far, at least for North Korea. Despite an apparent political will to fully embrace 4IR, and even a burgeoning infrastructure to support some of the concomitant capabilities, North Korea is saddled with several limiting factors, such as [those] directly tied to state security that place boundaries on how far the regime can push its aspirations.

Q. Why Can’t DPRK State Security Fully Adopt the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

So, why can’t North Korean state security fully adopt the 4IR?

Although North Korea has a nascent capability to indigenously develop some of the pieces of the 4IR surveillance system, it has limited capacity for manufacturing highly integrated electronics. Much of what they're using in terms of the software for their surveillance systems are imported from places like China and, to a certain extent, by Russia. And when these [systems] break down, they're often not replaced, either because of economic reasons or for cultural reasons. North Koreans are still trying to develop their own indigenous capabilities and they're not quite there yet on all the panoply of 4IR technologies.

Second, North Korea's ongoing issues with its insufficient interconnectivity, particularly in more remote areas of the country, and a lack of steady flow of electricity make it difficult for the regime to blanket the country with technology-based surveillance systems that rely on such capabilities as AI and CCTV.

Third, and this I think is the most important one, if North Korea settles on a hybrid approach [that] integrates limited 4IR capabilities into its surveillance system, it could opt for watching the watchers, making sure that the internal security apparatus is operating in an efficient manner. However, placing state security under observation complicates the opportunities for bribery and corruption, which many state security agents rely on to make ends meet. So in other words, by introducing 4IR into the internal security apparatus, North Korea could inadvertently undermine the culture that makes the system work.

And so this is a conundrum that the North Koreans are going to have to deal with, especially on state security. Whether this leads to proliferation of these technologies in other parts of the North Korean system—[such as] the economic system, the social system, the political system remains to be seen. But I think that at least when it comes to state surveillance, while the North Koreans will introduce some of this technology, it will be somewhat complicated and will not be fully in the near future.

So in conclusion, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is progressively entering into different facets of life in North Korea and reshaping the landscape of its society, especially in Pyongyang. Smartphones now facilitate electronic payments, and set top boxes offer additional TV and streaming options, especially to the elite. Cameras keep watch on traffic in major cities, and electronic cards provide access to transportation.

However, this digital transformation comes at a price. As these technologies continue to roll out, the digital footprint for North Korean citizens becomes larger, and the North Korean state's ability to gain a deeper insight into the people's lives grows.

That said, it is unclear whether North Korea can expand into the few remaining dark spots inside the regime by fully rolling out a vast 4IR surveillance network, as seen in countries such as China. Budgetary and cultural issues will likely limit what North Korean state security can do in the technological space. It will likely continue to adhere to a hybrid strategy, selectively choosing how it deploys its more modern capabilities while allowing its traditional human networks to continue to carry out responsibilities of the police state.

And so one last thing that I would say is, the more that North Korea adopts this technology into its system—whether in its state security, economic, political, or social [sectors]—it gives us the ability to actually observe the North Korean state in a much closer way through cyber means than ever before. That is something the North Koreans will also have to pay attention to. The more you become digitized, the more vulnerable you become to cyber-hacking, and the U.S. and its allies are very good at doing such things.

So we'll see how far North Korea actually wants to expand this “brave new world” and these technologies into its day-to-day life. Thank you.

■ Ken GAUSE is an analyst and a Senior Advisor of the North Korea Program at the Institute for Defense Analyses.

■ Typeset by: Jisoo Park, Research Associate
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