Immigration officials at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport scrambled to hand-record travel information for thousands of passengers yesterday after the National Immigration Agency (NIA) computer system crashed.
The NIA’s main and backup systems experienced sporadic malfunctions throughout the day. At press time, the system was undergoing repair and was not expected to be back online until noon today, NIA Deputy Director-General Huang Bi-hsia (黃碧霞) said.
Kaohsiung International Airport and Kinmen Airport, which mostly caters to passengers traveling to China via the three mini-links, also reported system malfunctions.
PHOTO: YAO KAI-SHIOU, TAIPEI TIMES
The NIA cited faulty computer hardware, but said the main computer system at the agency was working normally, though it was not accessible at the airport.
The hardware had been replaced and the agency would have more information about the nature of the problems once they were resolved, Huang said.
The Central News Agency reported that the NIA had recently terminated its contract with its computer system maintenance company, which was replaced on Thursday.
The report suggested that a bug could have been planted by a disgruntled individual.
All travel documents were being hand-checked by immigration officers yesterday, causing long lineups and leaving thousands of passengers frustrated. Officers wrote down passengers’ travel information, which the NIA said would be entered into the system once the computers had been fixed.
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport opened 40 immigration windows to handle the backlog of passengers, Huang said.
Repair work began immediately after the system malfunction was discovered at 6:45am, a peak travel hour. Technicians were still battling with the problematic hardware at 2pm, Huang said.
Yesterday was a particularly busy travel day as the first working day following the four-day New Year holiday weekend.
Many passengers feared delays would prevent them from making connecting flights, but the NIA said no passengers had missed their flights because of the glitch.
Huang acknowledged the breakdown could result in a security breach, and said the NIA would not be able to ascertain whether anyone had slipped in or out of the country illegally until the system was up and running.
As of 1pm yesterday, approximately 20,000 people had exited the country through Taiwan Taoyuan International airport.
Minister of the Interior Liao Liou-yi (廖了以) and NIA Director-General Hsieh Li-kung (謝立?urveyed the situation at the airport yesterday afternoon and stayed for 20 minutes after being updated on the situation by airport officials.
One day earlier, hundreds of travelers departing from Taiwan Taoyuan airport on 11 different flights had to leave without their checked-in luggage when a conveyor belt broke down for almost two hours.
CAUTION: Wearing a mask in crowded places and for people with chronic illnesses or allergies can help prevent COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, the CECC said The mask mandate for outdoor settings is to lifted on Thursday, and the weekly cap on international inbound travelers is to be removed on Dec. 10, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said at its regular news conference yesterday. The center also announced that starting from Friday, children aged five to 11 can receive a COVID-19 vaccine booster, and that rules for visiting hospital patients are to be partially eased from Dec. 10. While wearing a mask will no longer be mandatory outdoors, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) reminded the public that it would still be required
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: China might impose a blockade, conduct limited force operations, use an air and missile campaign, or resort to an invasion, the report said The US Department of Defense has identified four possible military courses of action that China could take against Taiwan, but did not offer any guess on when Beijing might be ready to act. In an annual report to the US Congress released on Tuesday titled Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2022, the department gave a broad overview of China’s military capabilities, strategy, ambitions and intentions. The report devoted significant space to developments related to Taiwan, against which it said China had intensified diplomatic, economic, political and military pressure last year. For example, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
PRESS FREEDOM: Britain called reports that a BBC journalist was beaten and detained ‘unacceptable’; China said the reporter did not present his credentials Chinese authorities yesterday eased some COVID-19 rules, but affirmed their severe “zero COVID” strategy after protesters demanded Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) resign in the biggest show of opposition to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in decades. The government made no comment on the protests or the criticism of Xi, but the decision to ease at least some of the restrictions appeared to be aimed at quelling anger. It was not clear how many people were detained since protests began on Friday and spread to cities, including Shanghai and Beijing. The city government of Beijing yesterday announced that it would no longer
China launched 1.4 billion cyberattacks against Taiwan from September 2019 to August 2020, a new report by a Japanese government-funded think tank said. The attacks largely aimed to spread disinformation in Taiwan, with its authors assessing China’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan to be a “great threat,” the Japanese Ministry of Defense-affiliated Defense Research Institute said on Friday. The institute has published its China Security Report annually since 2011. This year’s report focused largely on cognitive warfare. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army has been undertaking large-scale reforms since 2015, including the establishment of regional command centers for its land, sea and air forces, and
RSS