The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office and the Agency Against Corruption have discovered that National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials bought biometric equipment from China for use in the e-Gates in the nation’s three major airports, sources said on Saturday.
The biometric equipment, which has been in use since 2012 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Kaohsiung International Airport and Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport), allows fast-track passport control for frequent travelers by using biometric verification methods such as facial recognition and fingerprint identification, and might have been compromised by China-made software and equipment, sources told the Liberty Times (the sister paper of the Taipei Times) on condition of anonymity.
The allegation has alarmed government investigators and security experts, who fear the e-Gates would be vulnerable to hacks by China or other groups seeking to obtain privileged information, or to circumvent travel restrictions on criminals or others, sources said.
Photo: Tony Yao, Taipei Times
The Public Construction Commission’s regulations bar the purchase of equipment or technology from China that are “of a sensitive nature or might affect national security.”
Investigators reportedly suspect the bid for e-Gate computers and software was rigged by Transtep Technology Group (跨越科技) owner Lee Chi-shen (李奇申) and then-immigration agency information section chief Shih Ming-te (施明德), sources said.
They said investigators suspect Lee conspired to fix the bid for e-Gate computers and software as early as 2009.
Lee allegedly arranged for other industry figures to submit bids on his behalf and surreptitiously dictated the technical requirements of the project by writing the code for the border control’s operating system, sources said.
While e-Gate contractor Ho Fan Co (和範) is nominally a Fuji Xerox subsidiary, Transtep Technology was in control of all business related to the e-Gate contract, sources said.
TECO Smart Technologies Co (東元捷德), which supplied the e-Gate equipment to Ho Fan, allegedly imported the machines from China and then claimed they had been manufactured in Taiwan, the sources said.
Prosecutors and anti-corruption officials are concerned that Lee appears to have held a monopoly on the government’s procurement of e-Gate systems, they said.
There are fears that Lee might have knowingly or unknowingly compromised the border control apparatus via pre-installed backdoors, which could be exploited by a third party, sources said.
Lee is suspected of having connections to “specific individuals” in China and was known to have sent personnel to Shenzhen for “training,” raising fears that Lee had “nullified” the nation’s border controls and endangered travelers’ privacy, they said.
The sources said Lee and Shih are suspected of involvement in no fewer than seven allegedly rigged tenders over the past eight years and there are concerns the two men might have been acting under the instructions of others.
Shih and former immigration information section chief Chen Ying-chieh (陳英傑) were among the 41 people questioned last month by prosecutors in connection with the suspicious contracts.
Prosecutors in Taipei yesterday would only confirm that an investigation is underway.
Additional reporting by CNA
RESILIENCE: Deepening bilateral cooperation would extend the peace sustained over the 45 years since the Taiwan Relations Act, Greene said Taiwan-US relations are built on deep economic ties and shared values, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday, adding that strengthening supply chain security in critical industries, enhancing societal resilience through cooperation and deepening partnerships are key to ensuring peace and stability for Taiwan in the years ahead. Greene made the remarks at the National Security Youth Forum, organized by National Taiwan University’s National Security and Strategy Studies Institution in Taipei. In his address in Mandarin Chinese, Greene said the Taiwan-US relationship is built on deep economic ties and shared interests, and grows stronger through the enduring friendship between
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
RSS