The Ministry of Justice has proposed legalizing the use of tracking and monitoring devices in criminal investigations.
The Supreme Court on Dec. 1 ruled that the use of such devices violates personal privacy when it found a coast guard official guilty of offenses against privacy for installing a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s vehicle in a case involving unlicensed cigarettes.
The official, surnamed Wang (王), was sentenced to 50 days in prison, commutable to a fine, and two years probation.
The ruling prompted the ministry to draft a new law regarding the use of GPS tracking devices in investigations.
The ministry has argued that such devices are helpful to investigations and that their use by investigators is in the public interest.
The proposal calls for granting authorization to investigators through court-issued warrants so that would allow them to use the devices for the duration of their investigations.
A proposal has already been drafted and the ministry is to submit it to the legislature for a review early next year, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity.
GPS tracking devices have often been used in cases involving drug dealers and the heads of organized crime rings, the official said, adding that investigators privately made the decision to use them, as there was no law prohibiting or allowing their use prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The verdict in the coast guard case came as a shock to law enforcement personnel when it was announced earlier this month, the official said.
The ministry hopes that the draft law would provide investigators with a legal basis and clear procedures when using GPS devices in their investigations, the official said, adding that the ministry has already collected feedback from academics and government agencies.
There is a consensus on the need for a legal mechanism to govern the use of GPS when tracking suspects, but there is disagreement about what act should be expanded to accommodate the new law.
Due to the unpredictable and time-sensitive nature of investigations, the ministry prefers not to have to deal with warrants, Deputy Minister of Justice Chen Ming-tang (陳明堂) said.
Tracking devices are usually installed while a suspect is away from their vehicle and if investigators are required to obtain a warrant before installing one, that window of opportunity might be missed, he said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods