Korean Job Discussion Forums

[garykasparov]

Police Plan to Install GPS in All Cell Phones

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200803/200803280006.html

Christmas Eve, 2007, two young girls aged 10 and eight disappeared from their neighborhood in Anyang city, Gyeonggi Province. Three months later the body of at least one girl was found on a nearby mountain and pieces of the other girl's body in a nearby lake.
The brutal murder was committed by a neighbor who lived some 130 m from their homes. Investigations are ongoing with more charges from past cases involving the murderer coming to light. And with it, the nation's police are being scrutinized for incompetence.

In response on Wednesday the National Police Agency announced its plan to install GPS or Global Positioning System on all cell phones nationwide while introducing Radio Frequency Identification Tags.

Under the current law, the police do not have access to phone GPS and they say this law needs to be revised. Only 20 percent of the nation's mobile phone users have GPS installed, making it difficult for the police to track the location of people while they are being abducted.

Experts say the plan will have to overcome issues like cost, which falls directly onto customers, and invasion of privacy.

Radio Frequency Identification Tags are devices that can be attached to a bag or clothes and give out personal information via high frequency to sensors. This is being marketed as an additional safety tool for parents of children who are out without supervision.

The location and an imagery taken by a camera device inside the tag keep track of the child, communicating directly with the parent's cell phone.

The idea comes from Japan, where the system is being tested at two of Yokohama's elementary schools due to the country's experiences with child kidnapping cases.

Whether the new devices work or not, parents are impatient with the system, wanting assurances and direction on how to keep their family safe in an increasingly unsafe world.

Arirang News

[nebraska1]

How about don't talk to strangers? And adults are not always your friend. Problem here is that children will talk, engage and go with any adult. Confucianism needs to die when it comes to that crap. Just because someone is older than you does not make them "okay", "right" or safe.

Plus some kind of Amber alerts. The parents didn't want to be embarrassed by the fact their kids went missing so they waited a full seven days before going public. The first 48 hours are the most important. Face saving be damned. Do you want face saving or dead, chopped up kids. Sick people are everywhere and Korea is not exempt.

However, I am sure, like the child safety seats, Korean parents know best how to protect their children. They don't need foreigners telling them how to protect their children. So they can blithely disregard the dangers and scream to the skies when these tragedies happen.

Sorry if this seems bitter but I live in the area where these girls were taken and this horror should not be visited on any child or family.

N1

[Beej]

Its just a smokescreen by the state to control its citizens. "Save the kids" is just a false pretense.

[Bibbitybop]

FYI:

In the US, probably in other countries, police can track your phone's location even if it is turned off. To mask your location, you must remove the battery.

I don't have a link. I read it on a major news website a few months ago.

[lsrupert]

When I went back to the states last summer and tried to use my old cell phone there, I was told that I couldn't because it didn't have gps. Supposedly, it is now the law in the states as well that all cell phones must have gps in them.

[ED209]

So now kidnappers will have to come up with some ingenuous plan like say 'throwing the kids phone away'! I shouldn't have said that. Please don't do that. M'kay.

[Young FRANKenstein]

[Bibbitybop]

[ED209]

[crescent]

[agoodmouse]