The legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday delayed its review of a proposed amendment to the Telecommunications Act (電信法) mandating telecom carriers to purchase next-generation networks (NGN) to filter telephone calls from overseas.
The amendment, proposed by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Sing-nan (王幸男), received cross-party support from 24 legislators and seeks to combat telephone fraud, after “telephone scams” were ranked the No. 2 public complaint in a Cabinet survey conducted in November last year.
Wang’s amendment proposed that all telecoms carriers should be required to take measures to stop such calls, for example by installing NGNs.
Chunghwa Telecom (中華電信), the nation’s largest telecoms carrier, is reported to have effectively filtered calls from overseas using NGNs. Statistics from the National Police Agency showed that phone scam cases dropped from 70 cases per month to 40 cases in January.
Wang also proposed that the cost of purchasing the NGNs should be listed as deductible when telecoms carriers file their tax returns. Any telecoms carrier that failed to take action to prevent or curb telephone scams would be liable to a penalty ranging from NT$300,000 to NT$3 million (US$9,600) and continued additional fines until the necessary changes were introduced.
Most lawmakers on the Transportation Committee supported the amendment, but it drew a mixed reaction from government officials and other legislators.
Kao Fu-yao (高福堯), director of the legal affairs department at the National Communications Commission (NCC), said the commission was in the process of drafting its own amendment to the Telecommunication Act. He said that the NCC’s amendment would also emphasize telecom carriers’ responsibility to help prevent phone scams and asked the committee to halt Wang’s proposed amendment until the NCC submitted its own version.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
‘JOINT SWORD’: Whatever President Lai says in his Double Ten speech, China would use it as a pretext to launch ‘punishment’ drills for his ‘separatist’ views, an official said China is likely to launch military drills this week near Taiwan, using President William Lai’s (賴清德) upcoming national day speech as a pretext to pressure the nation to accept its sovereignty claims, Taiwanese officials said. China in May launched “punishment” drills around Taiwan shortly after Lai’s inauguration, in what Beijing said was a response to “separatist acts,” sending heavily armed warplanes and staging mock attacks as state media denounced newly inaugurated Lai. The May drills were dubbed “Joint Sword — 2024A” and drew concerns from capitals, including Washington. Lai is to deliver a key speech on Thursday in front of the Presidential Office
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Celebrations marking Double Ten National Day are to begin in Taipei today before culminating in a fireworks display in Yunlin County on the night of Thursday next week. To start the celebrations, a concert is to be held at the Taipei Dome at 4pm today, featuring a lineup of award-winning singers, including Jody Chiang (江蕙), Samingad (紀曉君) and Huang Fei (黃妃), Taipei tourism bureau official Chueh Yu-ling (闕玉玲) told a news conference yesterday. School choirs, including the Pqwasan na Taoshan Choir and Hngzyang na Matui & Nahuy Children’s Choir, and the Ministry of National Defense Symphony Orchestra, flag presentation unit and choirs,
RSS