Effective immediately, all new passports issued will contain an electronic chip containing information on the holder, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, making Taiwan the 60th nation in the world to use e-passports.
All old passports will still be valid until their expiration date, the ministry said.
The Bureau of Consular Affairs (BOCA) said the new radio frequency identification technology would make Republic of China (ROC) passports harder to counterfeit and would help the nation’s chances of being included in other nations’ visa-waiver programs. The cost of the new e-passport will remain NT$1,200 (US$40). The cost is expected to remain static until 2010, when it is expected to be increased by NT$400.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The cover of the e-passport shows the logo for the electronic chip and follows the standards laid down by the International Civil Aviation Organization, BOCA Chief Lo Yu-chung (羅由中) said, despite the fact that Taiwan is not a member of the global body.
The chip is imbedded inside the back cover.
“I am very happy to have the new passport. E-passports are a global trend and it shows Taiwan’s commitment to global security. I don’t think there are any privacy issues,” said a man surnamed Chen, whose 19-month-old son was one of the first recipients of the new travel document.
Chen said a family vacation to Bali, Indonesia, next year would be the first time the new passport was used.
BOCA also announced a new emergency contact center and hotline to help solve urgent issues experienced by Taiwanese nationals while overseas. The toll free number is 0800-085-095 if calling from within Taiwan.
Citizens traveling abroad can seek assistance from the nearest ROC embassy or representative office by calling the 24-hour toll free number 0800-0885-0885, but that number is only available in 22 countries. Citizens in other countries requiring assistance can all 886-800-085-095 for a fee.
For further information, please go to www.boca.gov.tw.
US State Department regulations state that candidate countries for its visa-waiver program must issue a machine-readable passport. Furthermore, all passports issued or renewed after Oct. 26, 2006, must have an integrated chip.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,