back to article UK, South Korea strike data-sharing pact

The governments of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Korea (that's South Korea) have reached an in-principle agreement to share data across borders. It's the first such deal struck by the UK since Brexit, and therefore significant politically and commercially. It's also significant to citizens of both nations, as the …

  1. John D'oh!

    I fail to understand how the free flow of personal data across borders protects personal data as they state? In fact how is this even beneficial to people the UK?

    1. Primus Secundus Tertius

      How does it help? Perhaps you want to use a UK credit card while you are out there. Perhaps, even if still at home, you want to buy something from there.

      1. nsld

        Not a great example

        Credit card transactions are already covered in the card T's and C's and the card scheme rules. No actual transfer of Broad PII is made.

        The card scheme is asked 'this card? This amount? And either gets back a yes, go for it, or no, basic reasons.

        You dont need a cross border data adequacy agreement to achieve that.

        This is more about supported data harvesting for big tech...

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      The EU announced a South Korea data adequacy agreement six months ago, Global Britain wouldn't want to be seen to be lagging behind.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        ...until the EU see the UKs diverging data protection policies and decide we no longer meet their data adequacy test.

    3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      > In fact how is this even beneficial to people the UK?

      Great British electronic companies will now be able to collect data on their Korean customers and so be better able to market to them.

      Oh and 'pork markets' probably

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    and South Korea's Hangul alphabet produces odd characters.

    ... I would rather have thought that was the point :-)

  3. Terry 6 Silver badge
    Flame

    Last week I tried to turn off the data sharing permissions in my Samsung TV. There are hundreds of sites receiving information.. So many that they are grouped alphabetically A-G H-K etc.

    And each one has to be turned off individually, sometimes with two or more permissions.There's no "stop all" button. But there is an "allow all" (why would you) option that would be easy to hit by accident, should you turn off the permissions.

    I've complained to Samsung UK nd made it clear that I do not give my permission. They have a month, then I'll complain formally to the ICO (ICO's advice when I spoke to them).

    I have no doubt it won't make the blindest bit of difference. Unless lots of people do the same, which won't happen because most viewers won't even know, let alone care.

    I only found out when my TV guide started putting an advert across the page - and I went in search of a way to stop it.

    NB. Will never buy another Samsung TV, or indeed anything else.

    1. Totally not a Cylon
      Boffin

      Pi-Hole

      A Pi-Hole on your network stops all this.....

      Even with ipv6....

      I'm convinced it's also made web page load times 10x quicker....

      1. Halfmad

        Re: Pi-Hole

        For the lols go to the daily mail before and after setting it up. The difference is insane.

        Sadly it's not an entirely blank page which would be the ultimate improvement.

      2. Binraider Silver badge

        Re: Pi-Hole

        It blocks an awful lot of it, yes. Have you had any success in blocking ads inside applications e.g. youtube is pretty tricky to clear up.

        PiHole goes a long way at blocking phone-home-to-MS/Adobe/Google crud on a lot of other devices too.

    2. Cederic Silver badge

      I have two Samsung televisions, and they're very very nice televisions.

      They're also old enough to predate the predatory advertising and data slurping that's infested more recent products. Entirely with you on avoiding those.

  4. Totally not a Cylon
    Mushroom

    Easy but naughty solution.

    I speak English & Japanese.

    Can you guess which language Koreans prefer to use?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Easy but naughty solution.

      Klingon?

      1. Totally not a Cylon
        Alien

        Re: Easy but naughty solution.

        I think for a 'trade language' Ferengi might work better.......

    2. WolfFan Silver badge

      Re: Easy but naughty solution.

      That would depend on if you want to get thumped.

      Korean and Japanese are somewhat similar in many ways. Koreans and Japanese are related. Telling either group anything of the sort is an excellent way of getting both groups really annoyed with you. The only quicker way to get in really big trouble really fast that I know of is to mention the similarities between Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians. Except that way you have three groups mad at you.

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Easy but naughty solution.

        >Koreans and Japanese are related.

        Yes but they do have a rather fraught history.

        Yiddish and German are closely related - but that didn't really help.

    3. JWLong

      Re: Easy but naughty solution.

      Can you guess which language

      Koreans prefer to use.

      No Asian country prefers jap language for a reason, it was called WWII.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Use LibreOffice

    "Hangul WP 97" is on LibreOffice's File/Open types menu, might that work?

    1. WolfFan Silver badge

      Re: Use LibreOffice

      If it’s as good as LO’s MS Office importer, you‘ll end with a mangled document unless the document was fairly simple. Complex documents, with tables, borders, and such, don’t transfer well from MS Word to LO. I wouldn’t expect LO to do much better with a product from a smaller vendor.

      1. aks

        Re: Use LibreOffice

        It depends on whether their files have a published, open format in the way that LO and MS Office do. The language poses no difficulties. I've worked on it since the 1990's on multiple platforms.

  6. Binraider Silver badge

    The PiHole logs make interesting reading. Approx 50 percent of the requests blocked by it come from our Samsung telly.

    Most of the other blocked traffic is MS phone home attempts on work-mandated laptops. But that means an awful lot of traffic goes over TV.

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