Masking of military and security facilities... Video supplied through domestic partner companies
Revocation of permit in case of serious non-compliance with conditions
(Sejong = Yonhap News) Reporter Oh Jin-song = The government announced on the 13th that it has confirmed that Google has fulfilled the security conditions imposed at the time of permission to export domestic high-precision maps overseas.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced that it held a meeting of the Basic Survey and Overseas Export Consultative Group, comprised of related ministries and private experts, this morning and checked whether security conditions were met according to Google's permission to export 1:5,000 scale maps overseas.
Google applied to export domestic high-precision maps overseas in February last year. On February 27 of this year, the government permitted export under the conditions of limiting coordinate display, video security processing, data processing, and establishing a security incident response system. On the 4th, Google submitted a final report containing the results of implementing security conditions.
The consultative body confirmed that all measures to remove longitude and latitude coordinates for the territory of the Republic of Korea and limit exposure have been implemented in global internet and mobile services such as Google Maps and Google Earth.
To this end, Google developed a dedicated control system that applies to the territory of the Republic of Korea and established a system to block distribution when coordinate exposure is detected during the application update process.
Regarding video security processing, Google signed a contract on August 31 to supply video secured by the National Geographic Information Institute through a domestic partner company. Google must replace the existing map service video as soon as it receives the video.
Since the location and area of military and security facilities constitute security information, the government decided not to provide related information directly to Google, but to supply secured video through domestic partner companies. Google should install this as is without modification.
Currently, Google is temporarily blocking military and security facilities it has identified while using overseas civilian satellite images. The same measures were applied to past time series images from Google Earth. If the video is replaced with domestic security processing in the future, some facilities that have not yet been covered will also be secured.
Google also deleted all street views (street photos) inside military and security facilities that it had secured and on roads within 50 meters of the facility boundaries. Once domestic footage is provided, street views inside and around all military and security facilities will be deleted.
Google and a domestic partner company signed a map data processing and supply contract on August 31.
If a domestic partner company processes map data on a domestic server, Google must load it as is without changing the terrain shape. The export target is limited to transportation network data such as basic base map, road network, road name, number of lanes, speed limit, and road geometry.
To respond to security incidents, Google has designated the CEO of Google Korea as the person in charge of domestic guidance and is also establishing a system to respond to government requests 24 hours a day.
When the government requests a response to a security incident, such as an exposure of a security facility, the domestic guidance officer immediately notifies the Google headquarters response team and manages the response to be completed within one business day.
In the event of a national security emergency, such as a large-scale natural disaster or armed conflict, emergency response plans have been prepared in consultation with the government to change the area subject to security processing or disable certain functions.
Going forward, the government plans to continuously inspect the process of exporting domestic security-processed video and processed data and compliance with security conditions, and suspend or recall permits if serious non-compliance with conditions occurs.
He also explained that as Google uses domestic map and video data, it can now apply procedures in accordance with domestic law, such as corrective orders, like domestic companies.
The consultative body evaluated that the security vulnerabilities pointed out so far can be substantially alleviated by applying security processing in accordance with domestic law to Google Maps and Google Earth, which have a high global market share.
In the implementation results report, Google also announced its policy to operate a multi-year win-win cooperation program with domestic spatial information companies.
The government plans to support cooperation between Google and the domestic industry to ensure that specific win-win measures, such as technological cooperation and investment in the domestic spatial information industry, are prepared and implemented on an ongoing basis.
