Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said that he would ask the Taipei Department of Information Technology to draft a special regulation to protect personal information, after smart vending machines placed on school campuses in the city sparked privacy concerns.
The machines can only be operated by scanning a student’s ID card and do not accept cash.
“Smart city, big data, or AI [artificial intelligence] smart vending machines, these are imperative,” Ko said.
Photo courtesy of the Taipei Department of Education
“However, as people are concerned about personal information protection, I will ask the Department of Information Technology to draft a special chapter to regulate city government or private companies’ handling of data ownership,” he said.
While the city government references similar laws in the EU or the US, Taiwan also has the Computer-Processed Personal Data Protection Act (電腦保護個人資料處理法), he added.
The Taipei Department of Education in March announced that it had chosen nine schools to test smart vending machines to sell safety-approved food products and stationery on campus.
The policy’s aim is “to let students get used to cashless transactions from a young age,” it said.
The goal is to let every public school in the city have at least one smart vending machine, it said at the time.
The department said in a news release on Sunday that as of Sept. 30, smart vending machines had been installed in 89 schools in the city, but if the schools or parents have concerns over the policy, they can suspend the installations until a consensus has been reached.
“The department will continue to communicate and promote the policy to help schools and parents fully understand it. We hope that the policy, as well as courses on transaction data analysis, financial management and life education, can help students learn more about these concepts,” it said.
The policy also sparked debates about food hygiene and nutritional value, as well as possible overspending by children and personal information safety.
National Chengchi University associate professor of law Liu Hung-en (劉宏恩) on Monday said on Facebook that as student ID cards come with EasyCard payment functions, he suspects the policy’s aim is to collect big data on students’ consumption behavior to develop an “artificial intelligence business model.”
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) also questioned the policy, saying that its main purpose is to help companies make money and that it has no educational value.
DPP Taipei City Councilor Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) on Monday said that two companies have been commissioned to install the machines in more than 230 schools in the city.
The companies are to pay a rent of NT$1,000 per machine per month over three years, Wu said.
She asked whether the policy’s real aim is to collect data and why all of the city’s schools have been required to have at least one machine on their campus.
Taipei Department of Education Chief Secretary Chen Su-hui (陳素慧) yesterday said that when students buy products with their student IDs, the machines only scan the card number and do not access students’ personal information.
Ko has repeatedly said he aims to transform Taipei into a smart city, where transactions would be made through digital payments and cash would be eliminated.
He has also said that the city would take the lead by implementing a digital payment policy in government facilities.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
RSS