The Ministry of Economic Affairs has been ordered to improve its internal oversight after Chinese-made surveillance equipment was discovered at an industrial park labeled as “made in Taiwan,” the Control Yuan said in a news release yesterday.
Control Yuan members Lai Ting-ming (賴鼎銘), Yeh Yi-chin (葉宜津) and Wang Li-chen (王麗珍) on Wednesday submitted a report urging the ministry to conduct a review after the situation was discovered last year and ensure that it would not recur.
An investigation by the Control Yuan’s Financial and Economic Affairs and Foreign and National Defense Affairs committees found the Hsinchu Industrial Park (新竹工業區) — which is administered by the ministry’s Industrial Development Bureau — had failed to adhere to the “information security is national security” policy when purchasing surveillance equipment as part of a maintenance project, it said.
Photo: AP
Last year, the Chinese-language CommonWealth Magazine reported that a mainframe at the Hsinchu Science Park used China-made parts and that the park had allegedly tried to hide the fact by labeling the equipment as made in Taiwan.
Bureau staff in charge of the project had not rigorously reviewed the project details, visited the site to inspect the equipment or verified the source of the machine, its type and whether its documentation was in order, the Control Yuan report said.
While the bureau has penalized the employee responsible, it should establish better internal control mechanisms to ensure that such incidents do not recur, it said.
The ministry should take the incident seriously and, with the assistance of authorities in charge of issuing certification stickers, ensure that products are indeed made in Taiwan, the Control Yuan said.
Domestic information technology equipment producers have systems in place that allow users to verify production processes, and the ministry should work with the Ministry of Digital Affairs and other authorities to ensure that government agencies and private companies prioritize purchases of domestic products, it said.
Separately, the Control Yuan said that the Ministry of National Defense should improve oversight of the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, as plans to create a “smart surveillance system” were behind schedule.
It should consider the inclusion of third-party verification and national security standards in bidding requirements, it said.
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