Foreigners using GPS devices on the mainland risk being detained by police or national security agents if they suspect them of conducting illegal mapping.
'It's better for [your] safety not to turn on the GPS function [on your cellphone],' a State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping official said.
The bureau announced 10 days ago that it was launching a year-long crackdown this month on illegal surveying, with foreigners among its prime targets. Six ministries are involved in the campaign.
Its announcement cites the detention in December 2007 of a foreigner in a village near Luoyang in Henan province. State security agents found a number of locations marked on his hand-held Global Positioning System device and used that as evidence for his arrest, the bureau said, without elaborating.
The South China Morning Post spoke to a bureau official, who identified the detainee as American mining expert Calvin Herron. According to his online profile, Mr Herron is 'an exploration geologist with more than 20 years experience in acquisition and management of precious and base metals projects in the western United States' and experience 'managing gold and lead-zinc exploration programmes' on the mainland.
The official said Mr Herron was deported four months later after the authorities confiscated his equipment and data and fined him 100,000 yuan (HK$113,700). Mr Herron could not be reached for comment.