People using computer-generated images, voices and magnetic records to commit fraud could be sentenced up to seven years in prison and fined a maximum of NT$1 million (US$32,462) after the Legislative Yuan yesterday passed a third reading of an amendment to Article 339-4 of the Criminal Code.
The amendment was approved unanimously and is to take effect after it is promulgated by the president.
Currently, Article 339-4 states that people convicted of fraud could be imprisoned between one and seven years if they committed the offense in the name of a government agency or public official without authorization, with three or more people, or by dissemination of false information to the public via radio, television, Internet or other media.
Photo: CNA
They may be fined no more than NT$1 million.
“Images, voices and magnetic records created by computers and artificial intelligence [AI] technologies are easy to disseminate, and it has become increasingly difficult to distinguish between real and fake ones. Should scammers take advantage of the technology, the impact on society would be greater compared with other types of fraud. As such, it is necessary to impose heavier punishment on offenses committed through AI or other advanced technologies,” officials said.
Lawmakers also passed a third reading of an amendment to the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法), which imposes tougher sanctions on private corporations that fail to take protective measures, leading to personal data breaches.
The amendment was proposed in view of rising personal data breaches in the private sector and to address issues of oversight over personal data management, the National Development Council (NDC) said.
The amendment was also drafted in compliance with a ruling handed down by the Constitutional Court last year, which tasked the government with establishing an independent oversight agency to be in charge of personal data protection affairs, the council said.
The court also ordered that a separate agency be established to address privacy issues when the government implements the National Human Rights Action Plan.
Once the amendment takes effect, individuals and non-
government organizations that keep personal data and fail to take appropriate security measures, resulting in personal data being stolen, altered, damaged, lost or leaked, would be fined NT$20,000 to NT$2 million and ordered to rectify the situation within a designated period.
If no improvement is made or it is a serious data breach, a fine of NT$150,000 to NT$15 million would be imposed.
They would be subject to punishment until the situation is rectified.
The amendment to the Personal Data Protection Act is part of the bills that the government would use to crack down on fraud, along with amendments to the Criminal Code, the Human Traffic Prevention Act (人口販運防制法), the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法), and the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Act (證券投資信託及顧問法).
NDC Minister Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) earlier this month said that a preparatory office of the Personal Data Protection Committee is to be established in August.
However, the committee’s organic act has to be reviewed and passed by the legislature before it could begin operations, he said.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS