Google to obey South Korean order to blur satellite images on maps

Google said on Tuesday that it would comply with the South Korean government’s demand to blur sensitive satellite images on its mapping services, paving the way for the U.S. tech giant to compete better with local navigation platforms.

South Korea is one of the few places in the world, like Russia and China, where Google Maps does not fully function.

That is because South Korean laws require that companies store core geospatial data locally, something Google has long refused to do.

As a result, domestic technology firms like Naver and Kakao have cornered the market for mapping services, making navigation harder for foreign visitors unfamiliar with their platforms.

Google confirmed for the first time on Tuesday that it would abide by Seoul’s demand.

“We have already confirmed our commitment with the government to blur satellite images as required and we’ll be exploring acquiring imagery from approved Korean third parties where appropriate,” Google Vice President Cris Turner told reporters.

The announcement suggests the conclusion of a nearly two-decade dispute in which Google has argued for access to detailed South Korean maps to offer full walking and driving directions, only for Seoul to refuse to export that data for national security reasons.

Turner added that Google would “invest a lot of time and resources” to remove the coordinates of security facilities from its maps.

Google Maps access has been raised in South Korea’s recent trade talks with the United States, where Seoul managed to secure a last-minute tariff reduction from U.S. President Donald Trump.

The South Korean presidential office said that high-precision map data was among the topics that the trade minister had discussed “most extensively” with their US counterpart.

But it added that there had been “no additional concession on our part in that area”.

Industry sources told AFP on Tuesday that South Korean officials are still in talks with Washington, with the possible export of high-precision maps still on the agenda.