A lawmaker yesterday called for stiffer punishments for public and private organizations that leak personal information to fraud rings after police foiled the nation’s largest theft of personal data earlier this week.
Both the governing and opposition parties should reach an agreement on a draft amendment to the Computer-Processed Personal Data Protection Law (電腦個人資料保護法), Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) said.
Under the amendment, the total compensation offered by government agencies and public and private companies to individuals for failing to protect their personal data would be increased to NT$50 million (US$1.6 million) from the current NT$20 million, Wong said.
Agencies or company employees who are guilty of selling personal data would face a five-year prison term rather than the current two-year term, Wong said, adding that even those who leak personal data for motives other than profit would no longer be free from punishment, but would face a prison sentence of up to two years.
Wong said the leaking of personal data to fraud rings seriously breaches personal privacy and also has a negative impact on social order.
Wong said that earlier this year, a local textbook publisher allegedly leaked the personal information of 310,000 national high school students taking exams.
Then, on Tuesday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) busted a ring that had stolen more than 50 million pieces of personal data from government agencies and telecoms companies.
The police discovered that Chinese computer hackers were also involved in the case and have requested the assistance of Chinese police through a joint crime-fighting initiative between Taiwan and China.
The police began investigating the ring after state-run Chunghwa Post Co reported last April that a group of hackers stole more than NT$3 million from the savings of its clients.
The police later discovered that the ring hacked into the databases of the Bureau of National Health Insurance, the Ministry of Education and local telecoms companies.
The ring set up its own database containing information on government officials, business people and the general public, police said.
Police arrested the main suspect, a 32-year-old man named Chen, and five other accomplices on Tuesday in Taipei City and Taipei County. The suspects also sold the data to other rings for NT$300 per inquiry, police said.
Telecoms company employees collaborated with the ring, police said, adding that they were still searching for more accomplices.
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