South Korea will decide next week whether to allow Google to export government-supplied map data outside the country, officials said Thursday.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, which supervises mapping policy, will hold a meeting with officials from foreign, defense and other-related ministries next Wednesday and make a decision after the meeting, according to them.

On June 1, Google requested the Korean government to export the map data, and the government must make a decision by next Thursday.

An official at the ministry said a decision will be made "fairly, in accordance with the meeting's decision and relevant laws."

Google had made the same request in 2010, but it was rejected because South Korea's National Security Law, drafted more than a half century ago to fight communism, banned the Korean government from sending such map data to other countries.

For Google, the government-supplied map data are essential to offer full-fledged mapping services, including vehicle navigation and driving directions, in South Korea, one of the world's most wired nations.

The Korean government has said it may allow Google to use the government-supplied maps if it deletes or blurs sensitive facilities on the maps, including the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae.

But Google has refused to do so, saying that there is no ground for the Korean government to censor Google's mapping service and locations of such sensitive facilities are widely available in other commercial satellite images. (Yonhap)