The Ministry of State Security’s Information and Communication Research Institute was recently renamed and expanded into the Information and Communications Strategy Research Center. Accordingly, work is reportedly underway to move the center from the capital Pyongyang to Hyangsan County, North Pyongan Province.
A Daily NK source in North Korea said Tuesday that the Ministry of State Security’s Organization Department issued a decision on Oct. 3 calling for the renaming of the research lab “in accordance with a ratification [by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un],” and that work on moving the institute has been underway since Oct. 6.
In fact, the Ministry of State Security’s Organization Department reportedly submitted a written proposal last month calling for the Information and Communication Research Institute to be renamed the Information and Communications Strategy Research Center and expanded into a “specialized research unit to establish a general strategy for information and communications surveillance.” It appears that Kim Jong Un eventually ratified the proposal.
The existing Information and Communication Research Institute, while formally just a research institution, was in fact a small-scale surveillance organization operating under the ministry’s communication bureau, collecting specific intelligence designated by the ministry and regularly reporting wiretap data on selected targets. However, the source said that with the expansion of the institute into the Information and Communications Strategy Research Center, the organization will implement more detailed surveillance strategies in addition to its existing duties.
According to the source, the center — as a general domestic information and communications surveillance body operating directly under the Ministry of State Security — will perform the following duties:
- Surveillance of communication services and R&D institutions
- Surveillance of e-payment service apps
- Surveillance of Workers’ Party, government, and military intranets
- Surveillance of how well specialized units maintain their electronic documents, and keeping an eye on related apps
- Classifying, predicting, evaluating and reporting potential dangers
The source said the center will “serve as a specialized secret agency performing general surveillance of all domestic wired and wireless electronic communication systems and all sorts of programs, regardless of the subject, all under the the goal of protecting national security.”
Because of this, the source said the authorities are moving the center from Pyongyang, where the Ministry of State Security’s headquarters is located, to a hidden and largely inaccessible area of Hyangsan County.
Inside the Ministry of State Security, people are reportedly saying the center will allow the ministry to snoop on people’s communications in a more sophisticated way.
The source said the Ministry of State Security believes the expansion of the center will be an “opportunity to further strengthen the socialist electronic barrier by establishing communication surveillance strategies for state regime security and the safety of the leadership, and by swiftly uncovering and smashing the anti-state and anti-regime behavior of hostile elements by strengthening surveillance of all social classes.”
The source added that ordinary people “will never know that the authorities want to closely watch everyone by expanding [the research institute] so that nobody escapes the surveillance regime, including every citizen who uses an electronic library, a mobile phone or a wired home phone.”
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
