Lawmakers on the legislature’s Transportation Committee yesterday urged the government to address what they called a Web threat from China and protect the privacy of mobile app users.
The committee yesterday asked National Communication Commission and other government agencies to brief legislators on how the government aims to prevent China from infiltrating Taiwan’s broadcasting industry and threatening domestic information security.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Kuo-cheng (林國正) said that the nation receives about 1,000 e-mails from China per month in attacks on government agencies — mainly those handling national defense, diplomacy or the economy.
Lin said the US spent NT$113.8 billion (US$3.61 billion) building its so-called “Internet army” last year, which has recruited about 5,000 individuals. The UK and Japan respectively spent NT$37.4 billion and NT$4.4 billion in funding cybersecurity, Lin added.
China, on the other hand, has about 180,000 people in its Web army, although it is unknown how much the Chinese government has spent funding such a large of people, Lin said.
By comparison, Taiwan spent from NT$370 million to NT$430 million last year on information security agencies, supporting from 94 to 120 individuals.
Lin said that the government must increase the resources and funding dedicated to national security, adding that cybersecurity team members must also receive national security training.
Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) took issue with the privacy policies of mobile device apps.
Tsai said that some apps lack full disclosure of developers’ privacy policies, while others either did not ask users to read privacy policies before downloading them, or the policies contain many legal terms that are difficult to understand.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
UNILATERAL MOVES: Officials have raised concerns that Beijing could try to exert economic control over Kinmen in a key development plan next year The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) yesterday said that China has so far failed to provide any information about a new airport expected to open next year that is less than 10km from a Taiwanese airport, raising flight safety concerns. Xiamen Xiangan International Airport is only about 3km at its closest point from the islands in Kinmen County — the scene of on-off fighting during the Cold War — and construction work can be seen and heard clearly from the Taiwan side. In a written statement sent to Reuters, the CAA said that airports close to each other need detailed advanced
Tropical Storm Fung-Wong would likely strengthen into a typhoon later today as it continues moving westward across the Pacific before heading in Taiwan’s direction next week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Fung-Wong was about 2,190km east-southeast of Cape Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, moving westward at 25kph and possibly accelerating to 31kph, CWA data showed. The tropical storm is currently over waters east of the Philippines and still far from Taiwan, CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said, adding that it could likely strengthen into a typhoon later in the day. It is forecast to reach the South China Sea
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
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