Abstract
COVID-19 has triggered various changes in our everyday lives and how we conceptualize the functions of governments. Some areas require stricter forms of regulation while others call for deregulation. The challenge for the regulatory authorities is to manage these potentially conflicting demands in regulation and define coherently their overall regulatory rationale. The precision regulation approach can be a helpful approach. It is defined here as a streamlined approach to regulation to deliver the right methods of regulation for the right group of people at the right time. This problem-solving innovation in regulation triggered by the recent epidemiologic crisis in South Korea demonstrates the emergence of the precision regulation approach. South Korea has implemented streamlined fast-track services for the biotechnology industry to produce test kits swiftly. This article expands the definition of precision regulation from AI regulation literature, and positions the term as a new regulatory rationale, not as a regulatory tool, using the case study from South Korea.
Highlights
Crises drive various changes in our lives
This article highlights an example set by South Koreanbiotechnology industry regulation to illustrate a precision regulation approach, an emergeant regulatory approach to break the binary distinction by combining the deregulation with careful scrutiny
Such an application of precision regulation in AI suggest that perhaps the term can be potentially useful for regulators who struggle to find the right balance of regulations post-COVID-19
Summary
Crises drive various changes in our lives. COVID-19 is a global pandemic with 48.5 million cases, and 1,231,017 death confirmed worldwide as of November 6th, 2020 (1). While the above regulatory rules may be specific to regulating the AI technology, this problem-solving regulatory approach resonates with sectors and governments beyond the AI Such an application of precision regulation in AI suggest that perhaps the term can be potentially useful for regulators who struggle to find the right balance of regulations post-COVID-19. The prerequisites for the precision regulation are likely to be reasonably well-established public health infrastructure, high level of inter-agency trust, and efficient intersectoral communication skills among the policy actors Those characteristics helped to accelerate the discussions and enable feedback mechanisms to expedite the political processin the South Korean case. Precise and targeted deregulation in the bio-technology industry and effective communication in public-private regulatory partnerships have been South Korea’s critical enablers of COVID-19 test kit development (13). The sense of urgency to achieve such challenging goals further necessitated the involvement of wide spectrum of actors to join the discussion
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