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 Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
MORE RETALIATION: China would adopt a long-term pressure strategy to prevent other countries or future prime ministers following in Sanae Takaichi’s steps, an academic said Taiwan should maintain communications with Japan, as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is to lead a revision of security documents, Taiwanese academics said yesterday. Tensions have risen between Japan and China over remarks by Takaichi earlier this month that the use of force against Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. Prospect Foundation president Lai I-chung (賴怡忠) yesterday said Takaichi’s stance regarding Taiwan is the same as past Japanese prime ministers, but her position is clearer than that of her predecessors Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba. Although Japan views a “Taiwan contingency” as a “survival-threatening situation,” which would allow its military to
RSS