Korean Job Discussion Forums

[GwangjuParents]

For a paranoid parents, are there any GPS tracking devices available that work in Korea which can be used to monitor your kids location.

[bassexpander]

Korea is paranoid about allowing GPS tracking (for anyone but snooping gov't agencies, probably).

It was a massive leap to allow the I-phone to use internal software to pinpoint location, actually. They were stuck on that issue for over a year.

I suspect that behind all of these fears, certain males are extremely afraid of wives being able to track them and what they do in the evenings while "working late."

[Mr. Pink]

[bassexpander]

[victorology]

Tracking does exist. If you are a Show customer, it is called 아이서치 or child search. The one for friends is called 친구찾기 or friend search. Our company did marketing for the Show child search product.

It's only accurate to within a few hundred meters. There are also options you can input where if you child leaves a certain area, you receive an automatic text. Once, I was having lunch with a co-worker and he got a text saying his daughter was in the area of our office. He immediately called her and asked what she was doing.

SK Telecom has their own services.

It's supposed to be opt-in but you can always steal their phone, get their id # and forge their identity to sign them up. That's what happened to my friend. His girlfriend registered him for the friend search service and busted him when he wasn't where he said he was.

[Troglodyte]

I remember that even back in 2004 you could track people (with their permission) via their cell phone. I had a class of housewives and some of them showed me how they could identify where their husbands were. At the time I was working for a large company and I knew most of their husbands. The location indicated on the map looked like it was within 20m of where their offices were.

They also explained that it only tracks the cellphone (obviously) but if their husband leaves the phone at work, the wife could give it a call and would know that something is up if he doesn't answer. Same thing if he turns it off. They can see that he's "off the grid" and can call to see if he turned off his phone. But if he takes it with him to the bar, the Mrs can see that on the map and the maps usually show all the names of the businesses. The maps are mainly intended for you to use to find out where you are yourself and how to get to the nearest ____ or how far it is to a particular address.


On a similar topic, in Korea, is the government still discussing the possibility of chipping kids? I remember a few years back, some Korean colleages told me that the government was considering legallising this here, but only for identifying children. For those not familiar with "chipping", it involves putting a very small microchip under the skin. When it is exposed to a particular radio signal, it activates and replies back with another signal. The signal contains a number. The range is limited to maybe 50cm (less for weak receiving "scanners"). It works the same way as scanning a barcode at the supermarket. It's common place now to have pets chipped for ID purposes. Some companies have discussed the possibility of chipping humans for various reasons from IDing children (to prevent abducted children from being easily smuggled across borders) to replacing passports or replacing credit cards (just wave your hand over the scanner and enter your PIN). But I don't think that any coutnry has legalised chipping of humans yes.

[Xuanzang]

Why chip the kids? They're most likely going to only be at hagwon anyway?

[Troglodyte]

[Troglodyte]

On this topic, anyone who gets the contract for their cellphone in the name of their employer should take note about whether their phone has GPS (a lot of phones now DO have it). If the phone and account are registered to your boss or a co-worker, then they can track you any time they want as long as your phone is turned on. All they have to do is go to the phone company and give authorisation for that phone to be tracked (usually via the map on their own phone).