Gov’t Confirms Google’s Compliance with Security Requirements for High-Precision Map Data

The Korean government announced on Friday that Google has satisfied the security conditions required for permitting the transfer of high-precision map data abroad. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport disclosed that a government-led advisory committee evaluated Google's implementation of security protocols after the company received conditional approval in February to export map data at a 1:5,000 scale.

The assessment determined that Google had successfully put in place safeguards to protect geographic coordinates, as well as sensitive military and security installations, from being exposed on its global Google Maps and Google Earth platforms, encompassing both web and mobile applications. In order to satisfy these requirements, Google engineered a specialized control system specifically for Korea and implemented safeguards to halt app updates if they posed a risk to the disclosure of restricted geographic coordinates.

In August, Google also entered into an agreement to acquire security-treated satellite imagery provided by the National Geographic Information Institute (NGII) via a local partner. This agreement mandates that Google replace any existing imagery on their platform with the newly acquired security-treated data.