Point, Shoot, Snitch: The Rise of Tattletale Apps

Written by William Urbanski

When I first learned that Gwangju citizens could use an app to report parking violations that would result in stiff fines, I was seized by an overwhelming sense of ambivalence. On one hand, the rampant, blatant, and outright flagrant parking violations that occur every minute of every day are a scourge on our fair city. Any effort to address the problem is a step in the right direction. On the other hand, is it really the responsibility of private citizens to enforcing parking laws? It turns out that private citizens using their phones to report parking violations through an app is only a small part of a much bigger phenomenon in Korea: tattletale apps that allow people to file complaints against a wide range of “daily-life inconveniences.” What’s unclear is if tattletale apps amount to little more than a half-baked scare tactic or a carefully crafted response to complicated and multifaceted problems.

Getting Busted Fair and Square – The Photo Radar Problem
To add a little bit of context, in my home province of Ontario, Canada, photo radar was done away with long ago. This scheme, which automatically snapped pictures of speeding cars and issued a ticket, was eliminated after massive public backlash. The hugely unpopular initiative was seen as nothing more than a cash grab that did nothing to increase public safety. On top of this, part of the anger at photo radar had to do with cameras doing the job of police officers. So on the surface, while photo radar and tattletale apps seem like different issues, they share the common characteristic of shifting responsibility of law enforcement away from professionals. That, I feel, is the crux of the issue: getting a ticket issued by a uniformed, designated officer is one thing. Getting a ticket because some citizen went out of his or her way to live out a repressed fantasy of being a crime-fighting vigilante is another thing entirely.

Tattletale Options
The major app in question is called saenghwal bulpyeon shingo (생활불편신고). Roughly translated, it means “life inconvenience reporting.” For those of you who like being a tattletale, the life-inconvenience-reporting app offers no shortage of options, including the ones in Figure 1.
As Figure 1 clearly illustrates, what’s astounding about this app is the breadth of violations that one can report.

Figure 1: The Cycle of Squeal

The First Takedowns
For reasons of journalistic integrity, I felt it was important to test out the app. To do this, there was no better place than my neighbourhood, where people routinely park like giant recessive genes. After downloading the app and going through a quick verification process, it was time to become the living embodiment of Frankie the Squealer of The Simpsons fame.

The way the app works is that the user has to take two separate pictures of each parking violation, at least five minutes apart. After uploading my first series of pics, one of a car parked on a crosswalk and the other in front of a fire hydrant, I felt a momentary pang of guilt for the owners of the vehicle, knowing that it was me who was responsible for their future financial losses. That feeling soon passed as I remembered that both of these drivers deserved whatever was coming to them, regardless of my participation.

With giddy anticipation, I awaited the confirmation about the status of my complaint…and then disaster struck. Because I took one of the pictures after 10:00 p.m., the parking on the crosswalk violation was exempt. This is how I learned that for various reasons, such as encouraging businesses, parking laws are only enforced during certain times. My second attempt was also rejected because “the fire hydrant didn’t have a sign warning people not to park there.” I’m no scientist, but I’m pretty sure that the chemical reaction that causes fire occurs independently of whether or not a fire hydrant has a no parking sign on it. Major facepalm.

Tattletale apps contain an inherent contradiction. They ask the same people who can’t take one minute of their time to park properly to spend five minutes to report a violation. Is it a really good idea to ask the citizens, who, as a body, are the perpetrators of violations, to police themselves? Even if someone can be bothered to use the app and experiences the undeniable thrill that comes with being a tattletale, that feeling of smug satisfaction is outweighed by the fact that telling on people does little to address the real problem: lax enforcement of unevenly applied laws. Getting back to the example of the fire hydrant, there should be no exceptions: Just don’t park in front of one. So really, what’s the point of using the app if the violations will just be excused?

Driving and parking in Korea is a big source of contention here – particularly for those with experience operating a motor vehicle abroad. It’s very easy to get mad at the moron who parks right in an intersection, blocking traffic as well as obstructing the views of oncoming cars, and then point the finger at the police officers who are not doing their jobs. In all seriousness, this casual disregard for driving laws, and by extension, public safety, is a multifaceted and complicated issue that has no simple or clear solution. The whole phenomenon of ignoring parking laws strikes to the very core of the question of how laws are meant to work. Are they meant as hard and fast rules that are in place for the greater good? Or do they serve as suggested guidelines?

The Dirty Truth
There was a counter-intuitive revelation that came with using the saenghwal-bulpyeon-shingo app: It’s actually a lot of fun! The closest thing I could compare using the app to is the Pokemon Go phenomenon from a few years back. It’s seriously a good time to sneak up on a car, snap a pic, and report it. My recommendation is this: If you’re bored and looking for a free, good time, then get together with some friends and make an afternoon of walking around your neighbourhood and busting people. Maybe even buy dinner for the person who reports the most violations. Make a game of it, have fun, but just don’t for a second trick yourself into believing that you’re making any sort of difference in the world.

In the meantime, if you’re a driver and are concerned about being ticketed through this or other apps, here’s a tip to keep yourself safe from getting tickets: If you get out of your car and realize that you’re parked where you shouldn’t be, then open your car door, put your car in neutral, and Flintstones-push that sucker for two meters. You never know who may be lurking in the shadows with their saenghwal-bulpyeon-shingo app.

Graphics and photograph by William Urbanski

The Author
William Urbanski is from Canada and has lived in Korea for about seven years. He is married to a wonderful Korean woman and can eat spicy food.