The People Power Party on the 28th questioned the government's approval for Google to export high-precision map data overseas, saying, "Beyond the $350 billion investment and the high-precision map, what else did the government give to the United States?"
Chief spokesperson Park Sung-hoon said in a commentary that this was "the first bill to arrive after President Lee Jae-myung, the 'diplomatic genius,' concluded the U.S.-Korea tariff negotiations," and stated accordingly.
Park said, "The Lee Jae-myung administration has so far given a vague explanation that it would 'negotiate only within the agreed fact sheet,' but it has never made clear what that 'agreed scope' is," adding, "If, following the export of high-precision maps, it also makes real the additional opening of agricultural products and the weakening of regulatory authority over online platforms, this is not a simple trade issue."
Regarding high-precision maps, Park said they are "an irreversible asset once exported," adding, "Ninety percent of the domestic geospatial information industry opposed it, and in academia related to the issue, there were even assessments that the potential economic loss could reach up to 197 trillion won over the next 10 years."
Google has been asking the government since 2007 to allow the overseas export of domestic high-precision maps. The government denied the request in 2007 and 2016, citing national security, but the day before decided to conditionally approve the overseas export of 1:5,000-scale high-precision map data. This is the first time national high-precision maps will be provided to overseas corporations.