About 4,000 of Chunghwa Telecom’s fixed Internet network service subscribers are to benefit from its latest discounts for mentally or physically challenged people, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
The telecom’s plan was yesterday approved by the commission and is to take effect seven days after the company’s announcement is made available for public viewing, the commission said.
Since 2015, the commission has been meeting with officials from different government agencies to build a barrier-free communication environment, the agency said, adding that the initiative was based on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, as well as the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act (身心障礙者權益保障法) and the Fundamental Communications Act (通訊傳播基本法).
A resolution that was passed last year asked Chunghwa Telecom, which dominates the tier-one telecommunications market, to provide an Internet service discount scheme for its clients who are mentally or physically challenged.
Based on the plan, users who qualify for a discount would pay NT$100 (US$3.24) less per month for the asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) service, which downloads at 5 megabits per second (Mbps) and uploads at 384 kilobits per second (kbps), with the cost declining from NT$280 to NT$180 per month.
Those subscribing to the optical network service, also known as the light era Internet service, would enjoy a 20 percent discount if they subscribe to any of the 6Mbps/2Mbps, 12Mbps/3Mbps, 16Mbps/3Mbps, 20Mbps/5Mbps, 36Mbps/6Mbps, 60Mbps/20Mbps or 100Mbps/40Mbps services.
The company estimated that 4,000 Chunghwa Telecom subscribers would qualify for the discount, the commission said, adding that they would collectively save NT$4.9 million in telecom costs per year.
Meanwhile, Taiwan Star Telecom was asked by the commission to address privacy protection issues after one of the company’s former employees complained about continuously receiving work assignments through text messages even after he had left the company for three years.
The error puts the company at risk of breaching the Personal Information Protection Act (個人資料保護法), commission spokesperson Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said.
“The company was supposed to remove the information of the employee after he left. The negligence would constitute a violation of Article 11 of the Personal Information Protection Act, and the company is asked to address the situation within one month. It could face a fine of NT$20,000 to NT$200,000 if it fails to do so,” he said.
Asked if the text messages had contained personal information of the company’s clients, Wong said that the messages included mobile phone numbers and did not include names.
The commission ruled that the company did not contravene the Personal Information Protection Act in this regard, he added.
The Taiwan Star Telecom said that it corrected the error on March 26.
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