A government body tasked with overseeing the protection of the nation’s sensitive information and networks on Friday released details of a draft bill online that calls for crucial infrastructure organizations to improve information handling.
As part of efforts to tackle threats to the nation’s communications networks and sensitive information, the Information Security Office has been pushing for the enactment of an information security management act since the body’s establishment on Aug. 1.
Details of the proposed bill were made public on Friday on the National Development Council’s online portal as it seeks public feedback.
The bill defines official mechanisms that would oversee the security of sensitive information from attacks by China and elsewhere. It also lays out plans for protecting the information and networks of eight major industry facilities, including those of energy providers and transportation companies, and proposes that fines for the failure of those industries to protect their information would amount to as much as NT$2 million (US$63,837) per offense.
The 24-article bill lays out policies related to information security, the development of cyberdefense technology and international cooperation on cyberdefense. It also defines responsibility and regulations related to the retention, management and protection of information by official organizations and defines plans for the improvement and implementation of systems for information protection.
The bill aims to stipulate that directors of government bodies be responsible for assigning vice directors or other capable people within their organizations to head an information security group, adding that the group would then be tasked with promoting and supervising the protection of their organization’s secure information.
The bill indicates that departments that effectively implement information protection measures would be rewarded, though it does not specify how.
Conversely, those individuals and departments that fail to protect information, thereby leading to harm to the nation’s interests, would be investigated and brought to justice through fines and other measures, it suggested, adding those that would be required to implement the new measures are energy providers, water reservoirs, communications network administrators and broadcasters, transportation companies, banks and financial organizations, hospitals and emergency respondents, central and local government organizations, and high-tech corporations.
Aside from fines for failure to protect information and facilities, fines of up to NT$1 million may be incurred for failure to report to the office on incidents related to the protection of secure information, the draft said.
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
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,
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