If a person publicly announces information such as the age and gender proportion of people attending an event, would it contravene the Personal Data Protection Act (個別資料保護法)?
According to the Ministry of Justice’s explanatory letter No. 10703505830, if personal data can be used to identify a specific individual through comparison, combination or connection with other data, then they are within the definition of what the act calls personal information that can be identified by indirect means.
If the data collector has no indirect means by which to identify a specific individual, then the information does not fall under the definition.
So if the information is merely age and sex, without names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses or other information that can be compared, combined or connected to identify any particular person, then the act does not define it as personal information.
Mobile signal data analysis that electronic communications operators collect are anonymized.
This includes data drawn from major activities organized by city governments or events such as the Taiwan Lantern Festival. There is no way personal information can be leaked in such a situation.
So when Democratic Progressive Party Policy Research and Coordinating Committee director Wang Yi-chuan (王義川) spoke on a political talk show about data — consisting of ages, sex and other details of people protesting outside the legislature in Taipei — the source of the information was irrelevant.
Whether the data were from mobile signals, estimates based from observation at the scene of the gathering or questionnaires, they could not be used to identify specific individuals.
Therefore, publication of the data did not contravene the act.
The attacks on Wang by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party, accusing him of using the machinery of the state to match personal information to individuals, are simply wrong.
Yeh Yu-cheng is a civil servant.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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