North Korean Smartphone Allegedly Snaps Secret Screenshots Of Users Every 5 Minutes
A smuggled smartphone just pulled back the curtain on North Korea’s digital control.
By Sukhbir Cheema — 11 Jun 2025, 02:44 PM
A smartphone quietly smuggled out of North Korea is offering a rare look at the regime's digital playbook, and it's more dystopian than many feared
The device, obtained by Seoul-based media group Daily NK and later shared with the BBC, wasn't connected to the global Internet.
That's no surprise in a country where online access is sealed off from the outside world. But it did reveal something else: surveillance baked into the system.
According to BBC's report, the smartphone automatically takes screenshots of user activity every five minutes
The images are stored in a locked folder that the phone's owner can see, but not access.
Only government officials have the tools to open it, giving them eyes on everything the user taps or scrolls through.
Beyond surveillance, the software is rigged to reshape language itself.
Popular South Korean words are replaced with regime-approved terms on the smartphone
The word "oppa", commonly used to refer to an older brother or boyfriend in South Korea, is auto-corrected to "comrade". A warning appears: "This word can only be used to describe your siblings."
Even the word "South Korea" is forcibly rewritten as "puppet state".
This kind of system speaks volumes about how far the regime is willing to go to control its citizens in what they see, how they think and speak.