Taiwan could become an Orwellian society with no privacy from a Big Brother government able to monitor every aspect of citizens’ daily lives if the government goes ahead with an electronic national identification card (eID) without first establishing protection measures and a regulatory body, cybersecurity experts and academics said yesterday.
Lu Chung-chin (呂忠津), a professor at National Tsing Hua University’s College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science who researches digital communications, said there are inherent risks of security breaches with the “one card for all” scheme, given that the eID’s chip would store the carrier’s personal information.
The Ministry of the Interior plans to have the eID incorporate all the data on national ID cards, Citizen Digital Certificates, National Health Insurance cards and driver’s licenses, and it was scheduled to roll out the program in October, but the start date has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: CNA
“It is inconceivable that our government has ignored opposing voices and is going to push the plan through to force people to accept an eID. Under this scheme, there are few controls and no limitations on collecting each citizen’s electronic data and digital footprint, as all the eggs would now be in one basket,” Lu said at the briefing in Taipei held by the Taiwan Association of University Professors.
“This will lead to an Orwellian society, allowing government agencies to monitor every citizen and control everyone’s privacy and their personal information,” Lu said.
Citizens’ right to protect their personal information is guaranteed under the Constitution, and therefore legislation must be enacted first to allow for collection via the eID system, and an independent agency must be established for oversight, Lu said.
“The public must also have the choice to use existing IDs, those of cards in paper form. This is what our government should do to defend our democracy, and protect our individual rights and freedom,” Lu added.
Liao I-en (廖宜恩), a professor of computer science at National Chung Hsing University, said the ministry’s entire planning process for the eID scheme from its initiation to its tender was questionable and possibly illegal.
A new regulation on issuing eIDs to replace existing ID cards was only announced on March 19, yet the implementation date for the scheme was retroactively set to Jan. 1 last year, Liao said.
“This was to cover up that an illegal tender process for the eIDs was already under way last year, and won by contractors who had already been working on the scheme,” Liao said.
“We need government officials to open up this process and communicate with the public in a transparent manner, but we did not have that. Instead, when questioned, interior ministry officials just kept on saying that ‘the eID is guaranteed to be safe,’ and rejected concerns raised by the public, civic groups and cybersecurity experts,” he said.
“This is such an important matter — protecting personal privacy and the dangers of digital data breaches relating to national security — but there was no platform for dialogue with government, for people to express their opinions,” he said.
“I am very disturbed and feel very sad, because some government officials still have this ‘we know what is best for you’ mindset on the eID scheme, and look down on the public,” he added.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the