New national electronic identification cards (eID) are to be released from July next year, Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said yesterday.
Regional trial runs for issuing the cards are to be held from January to June next year, before the nationwide release, Hsu said at a meeting of the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee.
Residents in Hsinchu City, Penghu County and parts of New Taipei City, including the Banciao (板橋) and Jhonghe (中和) districts, would be eligible for the trial release, he added.
Photo: screen grab from the Ministry of the Interior’s Web site
Regarding information security concerns, Hsu said that a wide range of tests would be conducted before the eID system goes online.
Using the eID for civic services would not create a record in the ministry’s database, as the records would be maintained by the agencies with which it was used, in compliance with the Personal Information Protection Act (個人資料保護法), he said.
Software and hardware for the system would be maintained in accordance with the Information and Communication Security Management Act (資通安全管理法), he said, adding that the Central Engraving and Printing Plant would manufacture the cards at a secure location, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co would produce the chips.
Anti-counterfeit features and additional mechanisms to protect personal information contained in the chip would also be in place to safeguard people’s privacy, Hsu said.
The fee to upgrade a traditional ID card to an eID is NT$300, which would increase to NT$900 the second time a person applies for an eID, he said.
Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Jang Chyi-lu (張其祿) said that spending NT$900 to obtain an eID would be a burden to members of the public.
Hsu said that this price was already close to the production cost of the cards.
Phase 2 clinical trial results of the Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp’s COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday were published on the Web site of The Lancet: Respiratory Medicine, in an early preview before publication. The study paves the way for other nations to issue emergency use authorizations or produce the Medigen vaccine, given The Lancet’s credibility as a highly respected medical journal with a rigorous peer-review process, Medigen’s international affairs director Lien Chia-en (連加恩) said. Lien said that the study is important as it proposes methods for converting international units for efficacy comparisons. The methods have been used for correlating the efficacy of hepatitis B
LIABILITIES MULLED: New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi said Taipei would find out if the firm was legally registered, the guide was licensed and the weather was assessed The assets of Tian Da Local Nature Co are to be frozen after at least four people died after falling into the Beishi River (北勢溪) on an outing the company had organized on Saturday, the Taipei City Government said yesterday. Six people — two adults and four children — were washed away by a flash flood on the river in New Taipei City’s Hubaotan (虎豹潭) area. They were participating in a Nature Joy Camp outdoor activity with a group of 16 adults and 15 children led by a guide surnamed Su (蘇). As of 4:30pm yesterday, four of the missing had been
THREATS: Dismissing Beijing’s assertion that its military exercises only target Taiwanese separatists, Chiu Kuo-cheng said war has no regard for political affiliation In case Taiwan is attacked, the military will defend the nation and not stand by like “plastic toys,” Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng (邱國正) said yesterday at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Chiu was responding to Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) asking him to clarify his remark last week that “the military holds to the principle that we will not fire the first shot.” Wang asked Chiu whether he meant what he said literally or that Taiwan would not start a war. “The Republic of China will not start a war,” Chiu
Taiwanese worked more hours than people in all but three other countries in the world last year, Ministry of Labor data showed. Singapore placed first in average hours worked among the 40 economies surveyed, with an average of 2,288 hours per worker last year, the data showed. The city-state was followed by Colombia with 2,172 hours — based on 2019 data — and Mexico with 2,124 hours, it showed. Taiwan came in fourth, with 2,021 hours, it showed. South Korean workers clocked the third-most hours in Asia, with 1,908 hours, followed by Japan with 1,598 hours, it showed. However, compared with 2019, the survey found
RSS