North Korea has turned the smartphone — a tool of liberation elsewhere — into a leash.
Multiple new reports reveal that the regime is now using modified smartphones to track, censor, and psychologically control its own citizens. These aren’t just monitored devices. They’re weapons of narrative warfare, wrapped in plastic and glass.
→ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14775207/Phone-smuggled-North-Korea-scary.html
→ https://techstory.in/inside-north-koreas-secret-smartphone-censorship-surveillance-and-state-control/
Smuggled footage from defectors shows “government-issued” phones equipped with apps that log every touch, delete photos of forbidden content, and block outbound communications. Voice recognition? Installed. Offline AI filtering? Deployed.
Even SMS drafts are monitored. Thoughtcrime begins at the keypad.
And now, they have friends.
This week, Russian security chief Nikolai Patrushev landed in Pyongyang — an unannounced meeting with Kim Jong-un that likely signals deeper tech coordination. Patrushev, one of Putin’s most hawkish advisors, brings experience in digital suppression. Moscow wants influence. Pyongyang wants code.
→ https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/06/04/russian-security-chief-in-pyongyang-for-talks-with-kim-jong-un-a89328
→ https://www.nknews.org/2025/06/top-russian-security-official-arrives-in-pyongyang-for-talks-with-kim-jong-un/
Together, they are building authoritarian digital twins — regimes where the phone is not a portal to truth, but a weaponized mirror that reflects only the state’s will.
Smartphones in North Korea are no longer surveillance tools.
They are surveillance cultures — normalized, enforced, and soon exportable.