The government’s census Web site on Sunday crashed on its opening day, raising concerns that personal information could have been leaked.
More than 10,000 people visited the site when it went online at 9am, requiring contractor Acer to adjust the system to ease congestion and boost speeds, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.
Users reported having trouble signing in to the site and loading pages starting at about 10:25am, while some reported seeing other people’s information.
The site was shut down at 10:44am for repairs and went back online after 11pm.
The crash was likely caused by heavy traffic, DGBAS Minister Chu Tzer-ming (朱澤民) said.
Officials shut down the site immediately after reports that some personal information was being erroneously displayed, he added.
Chu thanked the public for their support and apologized for any inconvenience, vowing to clarify details related to the crash and resolve the matter as soon as possible.
Cybersecurity experts chastised the Executive Yuan for the blunder, saying it was not the first time it has botched an online registration system tasked with collecting personal information.
The government’s household registration Web site has crashed five times, showing that the government is unable to control such platforms, let alone supervise outside contractors, National Taiwan University electrical engineering professor Lin Tsung-nan (林宗男) said.
If the government cannot even manage to run a simple data entry system, this raises serious concerns about its implementation of electronic identification cards, Lin added.
This year’s decennial census, the nation’s seventh overall, is to take place over the course of this month.
Online counting started yesterday, while the DGBAS is to send 16,000 personnel to 1.2 million households this month to collect data on population distribution, household and family structures, long-term care and childcare services, education, employment, language use and housing conditions.
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