Apple Announces 'Find My' For South Korea (appleinsider.com) 8
Apple announced it is planning to bring its Find My service to South Korea in early 2025. Originally released in 2010, the Find My service has been unavailable in South Korea, making it the last country without access to Apple's tracking feature. AppleInsider reports: In July 2024, complaints from users in South Korea reached a point where they were finally petitioning the government to allow Apple's Find My feature to work. Any iPhone made for sale in South Korea had Find My permanently disabled, so it wouldn't work even when the owner was in a different country. Now in a statement on its Korean website, Apple has announced that it plans to bring Find My to the country shortly.
"Apple plans to introduce the 'Find My' network in Korea in the spring of 2025," says a brief statement (in translation). "Users in Korea will soon be able to use the Find My app to find their Apple devices and personal belongings with their personal information protected, and check the location of friends and family." [...] According to the user petition submitted to the National Assembly Petition website of South Korea, Apple has said that Find My is disabled "because of internal policy."
"Apple plans to introduce the 'Find My' network in Korea in the spring of 2025," says a brief statement (in translation). "Users in Korea will soon be able to use the Find My app to find their Apple devices and personal belongings with their personal information protected, and check the location of friends and family." [...] According to the user petition submitted to the National Assembly Petition website of South Korea, Apple has said that Find My is disabled "because of internal policy."
Why the delay? (Score:3)
Any idea why the delay? "because of internal policy" is as vague as it gets.
Re:Why the delay? (Score:5, Interesting)
South Korean geographic data and information is subject to several regulations which severely restrict its reuse. The South Korean government defends the restrictions on the grounds of national security...
The legal restrictions have led to poorer performance of international platforms such as Google Maps or Apple Maps in South Korea. In 2016 and in 2023, Google and Apple respectively were denied mapping data, which therefore cannot offer real time or precise directions for their apps, impacting various services (including games like Pokémon Go, and more basic functionality such as driving or walking directions). The South Korean government has repeatedly justified this policy on the basis of national security, citing the threat of North Korea and specific security concerns such as the danger of unblurred satellite imagery of domestic military facilities..."
Restrictions on geographic data in South Korea [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
And Apple falls back on the vague "internal policy" (presumably, that policy being "we prefer not to get prosecuted") because saying "We can't because the government won't let us" tends to get the government mad at you, and then bad things can happen.
Re: (Score:2)
I think governments only get mad when you point out their policy if they were knowingly being naughty. In this case it seems like a worthy decision, a bit of privacy protection for everyone, but giving up a convenience that requires breaching that privacy. And now the citizens are petitioning "we really want this convenience" and the government says OK.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
There are several other cases where this applies, yet there was no problem with that.
Nuclear warfare doesn't need pinpoint precision. I guess an accuracy of several kilometers would suffice.
I hadn't realized (Score:2)
I hadn't realized that South Korea was missing. It's kind of big to need finding . . .
Maybe it's having out with Waldo . . .
How many Korean iPhone users on slashdot? (Score:1)
Just wondering if anyone here cares.