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Lawmakers warn Korea not to give Google Maps its data

Published: 08 May. 2025, 17:46 Updated: 10 May. 2025, 05:06

LEE SOO-JUNG
[email protected]

Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers, professors and debate panelists take a commemorative photograph at the National Assembly in western Seoul on May 8. [LEE SOO-JUNG]

Liberal lawmakers and academic experts urged South Korea to continue withholding detailed map data from Google, stressing that providing it could pose a “serious threat to national security.”

Multiple Democratic Party (DP) representatives claimed Thursday that more detailed Google Maps service in South Korea could expose the locations of the nation's nuclear sites and other areas important to domestic industries. Google requested the country's high-resolution maps for its service in February, and the government — which does not currently allow foreign servers to host its detailed geographic data — expects to have a decision on Thursday, May 15.

“South Korean military facilities are already exposed through Google Maps,” DP Rep. Boo Seung-chan from the parliamentary National Defense Committee said during a debate on the matter at the National Assembly in western Seoul. “However, with a more detailed map with the scale of 1:5,000, Korean military facilities and nuclear power plant sites will be revealed without any protection.”

International visitors have complained of inconvenient and limited services available on Google Maps in South Korea. The app is only available at a scale of 1:25,000 and lacks walking or driving directions, as well as any kind of turn-by-turn navigation, in the country.

To improve its service quality, Google has requested that South Korea provide higher-resolution geographical data at a scale of 1:5,000 — making every 1 centimeter (0.39 inches) equivalent to a real-life distance of 50 meters (164 feet). This is the third request of its kind: South Korea rejected such requests from Google in 2007 and 2016.

The government requested in 2016 that Google blur any areas that could entail security risks, including the detailed location of military bases, or that the company use a data center within Korea, but Google opted not to comply, claiming that doing so would negatively affect its service quality. Google did, however, agree to blur military sites in its February request.

An illuminated Google logo is pictured inside an office building in Zurich, Switzerland, in December 2018. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

DP Rep. Lee Jeong-heon said the detailed maps are not merely data but a “sensitive and strategic asset,” speculating of a future in which an AI beyond human control could process the country's geographical data.

“South Korean authorities must thoroughly review Google’s request to protect domestic industries,” Lee added, appearing to imply that better Google Maps service could weaken the market presence of Korean competitors in the space.

In March, the U.S. government stated that South Korea “maintains such restrictions on the export of location-based data” in its 2025 National Trade Estimate Report, in which it classified the nation's stringent attitude toward map data as a nontariff trade barrier.

Boo called such tariff negotiations with Washington an “infringement on South Korean sovereignty” and said that no other country has allowed the export of detailed geographical data that posed a security risk.

Lee Jeong-hyun, an intelligence security professor at Seoul Women’s University, encouraged frustrated foreign visitors to use South Korean navigation apps, such as Naver Map and Kakao Map, both of which offer limited English interfaces, as an alternative to Google Maps.

Lee agreed with the lawmakers that providing a detailed map to Google would increase the likelihood of revealing sensitive military facilities to North Korea, pointing out that allowing Google to blur the locations of military sites would require revealing the locations of those military sites to Google.

“They still need to know the exact coordinates to blur the location on their map,” Lee said.

He also warned that Google, if storing Korea's data on its overseas servers, isn't required to follow Korea's data privacy laws.

“It could bypass our policies and restrictions and compromise South Korea’s data sovereignty,” Lee said.

A Google representative, reached for comment, had not provided a statement on the matter by press time.

BY LEE SOO-JUNG [[email protected]]