Seoul: Google announced its agreement to comply with South Korea's security requirements concerning map data exports, aiming to address national security concerns and secure government approval. The tech giant will remove latitude and longitude coordinates for areas in Korea from its maps, as requested by the Seoul government.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Cris Turner, Google's vice president for government affairs and public policy, emphasized the company's commitment to providing advanced navigation services in Korea by strengthening partnerships with local technology. Turner also mentioned that Google might acquire government-approved satellite images from local partners like Tmap Mobility Corp. to further ease security concerns.
This development follows Google's previous attempts to export South Korea's high-precision map data, which have been hindered by the country's restrictions on transferring such data overseas due to military and security considerations. Earlier efforts in 2007 and 2016 were unsuccessful, with the government requiring Google to blur sensitive sites or use domestically produced images.
Google's latest move comes after the government postponed its decision on approving Google's request to export the 1:5,000-scale map data. South Korea classifies this data as a public "national base map," utilized by domestic services, but prohibits its external transfer without approval.
Yoo Young-seok, Google's director of global communications in Korea, highlighted the importance of the 1:5,000 data for detailed navigation services. He noted that globally, there are no similar approval requirements for such map scales. However, local firms like Naver Corp. and Kakao Corp. currently use this data within South Korea through domestic data centers.
Concerns have been raised about Google's reluctance to establish a data center in Korea, potentially due to corporate tax implications. Despite the government's 2016 suggestion to create a local data center to avoid export issues, Yoo stated that technological limitations necessitate processing data abroad.
Google assures full compliance with local regulations and aims to enhance communication with the Korean government to address concerns promptly, expressing a commitment to due process in obtaining necessary approvals.