Applications for Citizen Digital Certificates (自然人憑證) were opened to foreign residents for the first time yesterday, paving the way for foreigners to apply for a range of government services online rather than in person.
More than 5 million cards have been issued since 2003, but foreign residents were previously barred from applying.
“Today we are opening applications to allow foreign residents to apply,” National Immigration Agency (NIA) information department head Shih Ming-te (施明德) said. “Foreigners will be able to immediately use the card to apply for entry and exit documents, with other functions to be added gradually.”
The National Health Insurance Administration and the Bureau of Labor Insurance are in the process of updating their systems to allow foreign residents to use the cards to look up information filed with the government, Shih said.
There are also plans to allow foreign university professors to use the cards to submit applications to apply for government subsidies, he said.
The additional functions are scheduled to come online by the end of June, he said.
“People care most about paying taxes, but it is already too late this year,” he said, adding that foreign residents should be able to use the cards to pay taxes starting next year.
Shih said the NIA would consider whether to integrate the card’s functions into a new generation of Alien Resident Cards (ARC) after the introduction of the new national ID card with integrated functions next year.
Foreign holders of ARCs embedded with advanced anti-forgery microchips can apply for the citizen digital certificates at NIA offices. Holders of short-term, temporary paper ARCs are excluded.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS