The Chinese government’s new residency permit cards for Taiwanese, which are to bear the fingerprints of the cardholder, pose privacy and national security risks, Executive Yuan Department of Cybersecurity Director Jian Hong-wei (簡宏偉) said yesterday.
Jian made the remarks after Chinese authorities earlier in the day published a preview of regulations for issuing residency permit cards for people from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, which are to go into effect on Saturday next week.
The cards would bear the cardholder’s name, date of birth, photograph, fingerprints, address and an 18-digit serial number, employing the same identification system Beijing uses for Chinese nationals, according to the regulations.
Photo: Chung Lee-hua, Taipei Times
“Fingerprints are private biometric data and there is no end to the ways Chinese authorities could use them once they get hold of them,” Jian said.
After obtaining fingerprints of Taiwanese, the Chinese government could link them to other biometric data and store them in digital archives, he said.
Taiwanese who give their biometric data to Chinese authorities would render themselves vulnerable to Beijing’s human rights violations, he added.
Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said the increasing power and sophistication of Chinese surveillance technologies pose potential risks to Taiwanese seeking employment or education in China.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Saturday said China’s issuance of residency permits to Taiwanese is “motivated by a certain political agenda.”
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office and the Ministry of Public Security said that with the new residency permit, people from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau would be identified with a six-digit address code starting with 83, 81 and 82 respectively.
People from Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau may apply for a residency permit if they are employed in a stable job, have lived in China for at least half a year, have a permanent place of residence and satisfy at least one requirement for continuing education, the agencies said.
Taiwanese who have held a Taiwan Compatriot Permit for at least five years may directly apply for a permit, they said.
The permits would record data about the issuing office, and border entry and exit dates, they added.
The Mainland Affairs Council issued a statement later in the evening, saying that it would investigate whether applying for a residency permit in China contravenes the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例).
Article 9 of the act forbids Taiwanese nationals to hold China-issued household registration documents or a passport at the pain of losing Republic of China citizenship and its rights and privileges.
China is a repressive regime with a poor human rights record and the public should consider the consequences before surrendering sensitive personal data to Beijing, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ding-yu (王定宇) and Taiwan Association for Human Rights policy director Shih Yi-hsiang (施逸翔) said separately.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS