2024.08.04. The Fair Economy — "Every nation has the government it deserves."
This remark is known to have been made by Joseph de Maistre, who served as the Kingdom of Sardinia's envoy to the Russian Empire, regarding the drafting of Russia's constitution in 1811. The idea is that even if a government is of a high standard, if the members of the nation are of a low standard and fail to measure up to it, the standard of the government will, in the long run, also decline.
Recently, there has been pushback against the creation and operation of a new system mandating maintenance of information and communications facilities installed in multi-unit housing, and this brought the above remark to mind once again. The opposition to this system appears to stem from a failure to understand that information and communications facilities are now specialized equipment with a significant impact on citizens' safety.
The argument is that since people do not recognize its importance, there is no need to bother doing it — which means, in the end, every house ends up receiving the maintenance that matches its own standard.
The amended Information and Communications Construction Business Act, whose main content is to mandate maintenance of information and communications technology (ICT)-related facilities in buildings and other structures, took effect on July 19. Under the amended Construction Business Act, the Minister of Science and ICT must establish and publicly announce the standards necessary for the maintenance, management and inspection of information and communications facilities installed in buildings and structures. In addition, matters necessary for the content, methods and procedures of the maintenance standards are to be set by Ministry of Science and ICT ordinance.
Furthermore, the 'managing entity' — the owner or manager of information and communications facilities — must appoint a maintenance and management officer for such facilities as prescribed by Ministry of Science and ICT ordinance, and may outsource maintenance and other related work to an information and communications construction business operator.
However, while the Construction Business Act stipulates that the management entity of information and communication facilities installed in buildings of a certain size or larger, as prescribed by Presidential Decree, must comply with maintenance and management standards, the related Presidential Decree, the Enforcement Decree of the Construction Business Act, has not yet been prepared.
The law exists, but without subordinate regulations, the system cannot be implemented.
It has been reported that the delay in preparing and implementing the subordinate statutes of the Construction Business Act is because stakeholders, including organizations, groups, and parties related to multi-family housing, opposed the implementation of the information and communication facility maintenance system.
As one example, the Korea Association of Certified Housing Managers (the Association), led by its chairperson Ha Won-seon, opposed the proposed amendment to the enforcement decree of the Construction Business Act, arguing that imposing an obligation to appoint a maintenance officer and conduct performance inspections for information and communications facilities in multi-unit housing complexes with 300 or more households constitutes "duplicate legislation" and "double regulation." The Association stressed that, for multi-unit housing, intelligent home network facilities are already managed as part of the safety management plan under the enforcement rules of the Multi-Unit Housing Management Act, which were amended and took effect on May 22.
As the KAHM argues, one approach to preventing safety accidents caused by failing to observe safety rules related to intelligent home networks is for multi-dwelling housing management entities to formulate safety management plans and designate safety managers and safety management officers for each facility to implement them.
However, a distinction needs to be drawn between the routine safety management of installed facilities and the maintenance and inspection work that requires specialized expertise. While facilities need constant safety management, they also require periodic maintenance and inspection by qualified technicians due to factors such as aging.
The safety management that a multi-unit housing managing entity — which is not an ICT expert — can actually perform with regard to information and communications facilities would be limited to things like checking whether the devices making up the facility are powered on and operating, inspecting the facility's exterior and performing simple cleaning to prevent fire or electric shock, and managing the condition of locking devices to prevent physical theft or damage to the facility.
It is nearly impossible for apartment management office directors or staff to independently handle tasks such as: ▲ designing and upgrading home networks that serve as infrastructure for home network equipment and devices; ▲ updating home network settings in response to issues with newly emerging network protocols, services, and applications; ▲ setting and operating information protection and personal information protection policies for home network servers, terminals, and network sectors to address new security vulnerabilities; and ▲ troubleshooting software (SW) and hardware (HW) issues arising in home network systems.
Likewise, consider that the safety management plan for multi-unit housing facilities subject to mandatory management under the Multi-Unit Housing Management Act includes power generation and substation facilities, firefighting facilities, elevators and the like, and that, separately from drawing up and implementing the safety management plan, specialized agencies or qualified technicians and companies regularly carry out maintenance and inspection of these facilities under the "Electrical Safety Management Act," the "Act on the Installation and Management of Firefighting Systems (Firefighting Systems Act)" and the "Elevator Safety Management Act."
Taking all of these circumstances together, the conclusion is that ICT experts need to carry out maintenance and inspection of information and communications facilities, including home networks, in multi-unit housing.
In addition, there are points in the KAHM's claims that are difficult to understand at first glance.
One such claim is that CCTV equipment falls under low-voltage electrical facilities. Few people would agree that CCTV equipment, which is becoming digitalized and IP-networked, is an electrical facility. If every device receiving power supply were considered an electrical facility, all the various electronic information and communication products powered today would be treated as electrical facilities. Smartphones would be electrical facilities, mobile communication base stations would be electrical facilities, TVs would be electrical facilities, washing machines would be electrical facilities, and electric vehicles would be electrical facilities.
Likewise, I find it unpersuasive to assume that emergency broadcasting equipment related to fires is a fire protection facility. In-building broadcasting devices installed in multi-dwelling housing serve to broadcast announcements during normal times and emergency broadcasts during emergencies such as fires. They are information and communication equipment that inputs and outputs voice data, but can also be used for emergency broadcasting depending on the situation. Therefore, in-building broadcasting devices are called dual-use emergency broadcasting equipment. However, if in-building broadcasting devices were considered fire protection facilities, it would lead to the absurd conclusion that acoustic devices such as speakers and amplifiers comprising them are also fire protection facilities. The logic would be that while speakers and amplifiers are information and communication equipment when installed in performance venues, they must become fire protection facilities when installed in apartments.
The KAHM's claims are based on industrial systems or regulations from decades ago when the concept of information and communication equipment was not well-defined and the ICT industry had not developed enough to allow for sophistication and subdivision. Therefore, outdated and backward parts should be amended quickly so that such issues do not recur.
If there is an issue of overlapping legislation imposing similar obligations, the government and the National Assembly can sort it out.
Moreover, voices are rising that the maintenance system should be implemented as quickly as possible to ensure cyber safety of information and communication equipment in places not covered by the Multi-Dwelling Housing Management Act, such as officetels and other facilities. The government should respond to these demands.
A point of concern is the possibility that maintenance of information and communication equipment, such as intelligent home networks, may not be properly carried out for a long period due to opposition to rising management fees in multi-dwelling housing. This is likely caused by the perception that preventing additional increases in multi-dwelling housing management fees is more important than ensuring cyber safety.
However, in many of the safety accidents that have occurred so far, the cause has been the omission or neglect of safety measures for the sake of cutting costs.
If the information and communication equipment maintenance system is not implemented effectively, it is only a matter of time before another cyber safety threat incident occurs, similar to the simultaneous hacking incidents affecting apartment residents that took place in October 2021.
Our society must understand that the information and communication equipment maintenance system for buildings and facilities, including multi-dwelling housing, is established to protect citizens' lives and property, and we must pool our wisdom to ensure the system takes root.
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