Employees of Lotte Department Store show the Apple iPhone 3GS handsets that the department store began selling at its outlets earlier this month. Just three weeks into its local release, the iPhone is already one of the country’s top selling mobile phones, with local wireless operator KT reporting sales of over 150,000 units. / Korea Times |
Province Back Steps After Blocking Traffic Info on Apple Devices
By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
Here's the question: Can a company or person develop a mobile program using publicly open information without approval from the government? Gyeonggi Province at first said, "No," but decided to change its stance against strong backlash from the public.
The provincial government said Thursday it will withdraw the decision to cut off the use of the "Seoul Bus" program for iPhone users, a week after blocking it, allowing subscribers the ability to check real-time information on the location of local buses. A new policy will be implemented to supply the smartphone users with the positioning system.
Last week, Gyeonggi Province put a ban on the free application service, which was launched on Dec. 4. The development of the program allows users access to a plethora of information collected by the provincial office even though it is aimed for the public's interest. It's also hard to determine where the responsibility goes in case there's an accident from the use of the application.
It takes the cooperation of many organizations ― ranging from satellite information providers to bus companies ― to produce real-time traffic information, and the use of such information can't be approved without the agreement of every party involved, according to Gyeonggi Province.
Before the cutoff, the Seoul Bus program was one of the most popular programs for iPhone subscribers with daily downloads reaching 10,000 at the App Store, an online application shop of Apple.
Developed by an 18-year-old high school student, using public transportation information of the province, the application allows its users to gain information for the arrival time of buses at nearby stops by inputting their current location.
Uproar from iPhone prescribers flooded online sites in the wake up to the government's decision, saying public officers at Gyeonggi Province were neglecting their duty of offering convenience to their residents.
The feud was settled by the Gyeonggi Province governor, who ordered the relaunch of the service after being briefed on the matter.
This case, the first of its kind, still leaves much to discuss. While making such information more available to the public is encouraged for more public participation in policies and the overall improvement of information-based services, Korea is lagging behind many advanced countries in the way things are handled, experts say.
In a trend called "government 2.0," many countries are trying to expand Web-based services to share more public information with their citizens in attempts to reach out to them in a more engaging way.
In the United States, many major cities are offering their public information in areas such as crime, transportation and health to residents in the form of such applications, for free, and various program developers are releasing mobile and online applications using them.
There are also worried voices that say there should be a clear line when it comes to this type of information.
"There will have to be a minimum of guidelines of prior agreement in such cases, at least. In traffic information, for example, too much use of such applications could lead to an overload in the government system and could cause trouble to it," a Seoul Metropolitan City official said on condition of anonymity.
hckim@koreatimes.co.kr
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'600만명 학살 지휘' 잔인한 인물의 뒷얘기 공개
