South Korea's military considers banning iPhones

Sources on The Korea Herald said that on April 11, the Korean Air Force issued a notice on its internal network with the content of completely banning all devices with recording features and devices that do not allow the installation of applications from third party to control the range of available features. The ban takes effect from June 1 with a specific target being the iPhone.

The notice stating the above decision was made during a joint meeting between the naval, air force and army headquarters located in Gyeryongdae city, and said that the military considered expanding the scope of application of the ban to all applications. subordinate position.

Not only the air force but also the army is testing its application. In addition to iPhones, the ban also targets smartwatches and all other types of wearable devices. The ban, if applied widely, would affect nearly 500,000 military personnel.

South Korea's military considers banning iPhones Picture 1

The reason is aimed at the iPhone

According to the announcement, iPhones are completely banned but phones running the Android operating system are exempt. The reason is that the iPhone does not fully comply with the restrictions of the National Defense Mobile Security application that specializes in managing mobile devices operated by military agencies.

National Defense Mobile Security, after activation, will limit some features on the phone such as camera, wifi, network broadcast, USB connection and microphone. But Apple did not allow third parties to do so.

The Korean Ministry of National Defense launched the application in August 2013 to minimize the risk of information leaks. Initially, only people working at the ministry will have to install National Defense Mobile Security, and by 2021 the application will expand to all military personnel.

According to sources, discussion about the ban began last September when SK Telecom launched a call recording feature for iPhones through the A-Dot application. Apple phones do not inherently support call recording because this is illegal in many US states.

In Korea, recording calls is not illegal, but abuse such as invasion of privacy can result in legal penalties. Many Samsung Galaxy phone users say they stick with this company because of the call recording feature, for every 10 Koreans there are 7 Galaxy users.

More strict than the Korean Ministry of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) did not allow any personnel to use smartphones while working at headquarters. All must hand in their phones at the front desk before being allowed in.

By April 2020, JCS allowed smartphones to be used on the condition that the device must install National Defense Mobile Security and of course, the iPhone (which does not allow third-party applications to be installed) is still retained.

Lesley Montoya

Update 25 April 2024