A smartphone smuggled out of North Korea has pulled back the curtain on the terrifying level of control the regime enforces over its citizens, and the findings are shocking.
At first glance, the device could be mistaken for any other smartphone. But as BBC News discovered during a recent investigation, the tech is anything but ordinary.
It’s custom-built to 'spy' on its user, not protect them.
Every five minutes, the phone takes a screenshot and silently stores it in a hidden folder. This folder is completely inaccessible to the phone’s user but fully open to North Korean authorities.
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Essentially, the government is watching literally everything you're doing on your phone, all the time.
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It doesn’t stop at surveillance either. The device also censors language in real-time, rewriting your words to fit the regime's ideology.
When journalist Jean Mackenzie typed the word "oppa", a common South Korean slang term for “boyfriend”, the phone automatically corrected it to "comrade".
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Apparently, North Korea will only allow the word if you're talking about your actual brother.
Even more chilling, typing "South Korea" doesn’t go down well with the system either.
Instead, the phone forcefully changes it to "puppet state". This is a phrase the regime uses to delegitimise its southern neighbour.
For North Koreans, censorship isn’t just heavy-handed — it’s part of daily life. Expert on North Korean tech, Martyn Williams, told the BBC: “Smartphones are now part and parcel of the way North Korea tries to indoctrinate people.”
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Williams added: “The reason for this control is that so much of the mythology around the Kim family is made up. A lot of what they tell people is lies.”
People who’ve managed to escape the regime paint an equally grim picture. Kang Gyuri, who fled North Korea in 2023, told the BBC: “I felt so suffocated, and I suddenly had an urge to leave.”
Gyuri explained further: “I used to think it was normal that the state restricted us so much. I thought other countries lived with this control. But then I realised it was only in North Korea.”
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With reports of teens being executed for watching foreign TV and phones acting like spy tools in your pocket, it’s clear the reality under Kim Jong Un is far more terrifying than many realise.
With this news appearing alongside what a YouTuber caught on camera when marathoning in North Korea, it seems the situation in the country won’t be getting easier anytime soon.