The Executive Yuan is drafting regulations to tighten rules and protocols restricting the use of China-made telecom hardware and software by government agencies that could undermine national security, sources said.
For Taiwanese missions in countries where there is no alternative other than to use China-made products, the proposed measures would require that the agencies first pass two security checks — one by the government agency’s information security section head and a second by a higher level agency’s information security head, the sources said.
They would then have to file an application for approval by the Ministry of Digital Affairs, stating their reasons and conditions for using such products, with the information fed into a database on government special procurement programs for monitoring, the sources said.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
The additional safeguards are aimed at enhancing scrutiny to alert information security heads and patch vulnerabilities to prevent leaks and Chinese cyberattacks, they said.
During US House of Representatives Speaker Pelosi’s visit in early August, malicious messages against Pelosi were run on a southern Taiwan railway station’s digital billboard, which was rented to a contractor whose China-made operating software was hacked, prompting the Executive Yuan to undertake remedial action to patch the vulnerability.
The digital ministry, as the agency in charge of information security, has proposed stronger restrictions and enforcement of rules against the use of China-made telecom hardware and software by amending the “Principles on limiting the use by government agencies of products that harm national information security.”
Photo: Reuters
The proposed restrictions would include digital billboards and video displays rented to private contractors of Taiwanese railways and other state-affiliated enterprises and public sector agencies.
The ministry has posted a preview of the proposed amendments, now under review by the Executive Yuan’s Legal Affairs Committee, before the Executive Yuan is to officially issue an administrative order for their enforcement.
The main articles include an explicit ban against the use of China-made telecom products, including surveillance cameras, by government agencies and their contracted public-use sites, and would be incorporated into business agreement for companies renting the sites for use.
In related news, in response to allegations that a contractor from which Taiwan’s armed forces purchased bulletproof vests in 2018 might have used fabric from China instead of Taiwan, Tung Chung-hsing (董中興), deputy head of the Ministry of National Defense’s Department of Resource Planning, yesterday said that the armed forces had terminated the contract and handed the case over to the judiciary.
The armed forces are conducting checks on other contractors to see whether they have any links to China or Chinese funding, Tung said, adding that the fabric used in making bulletproof vests would be listed as one of the regulated military materials.
Additional reporting by Aaron Tu and Jason Pan
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
RSS