Korean apps' monitoring of children's smartphone use criticised by freedom advocates
Seoul regulator mandates installation of electronic sheriffs in devices used by youngsters
Lee Chang-june can be kilometres away from his 12-year-old son but still know when he plays a smartphone game. With the press of an app he can see his son's phone activity, disable applications or totally shut down the smartphone.
The app, "Smart Sheriff", was funded by the South Korean government primarily to block access to pornography and other offensive content online. But its features go well beyond that.
Smart Sheriff and at least 14 other apps allow parents to monitor how long their children use their smartphones, how many times they use apps and which websites they visit.
Some send a child's location data to parents and issue an alert when a child searches keywords such as "suicide", "pregnancy" and "bully" or receives messages with those words.
In South Korea, the apps have been downloaded at least 480,000 times.
The number will likely go up. Last month the Korea Communications Commission required telecoms and parents to ensure Smart Sheriff or one of the other monitoring apps is installed when anyone aged 18 years or under gets a new smartphone.
Many countries have filtering tools for the internet but it is rare to enforce them by law. Japan enacted a law in 2009 but unlike Korea it allows parents to opt out.