Government agencies are to be banned from using any Chinese electronics from the end of this year, rather than have a “blacklist” of products that must be continually updated, a source within the Executive Yuan said on Saturday.
The Executive Yuan on April 19, 2019, released guidelines on the use of information and communications technology products that might pose a threat to national cybersecurity at public institutions.
The guidelines included plans to publish a list of banned products within three months, but the list has yet to be released.
Photo: Bloomberg
Responding privately to legislators’ concerns over the delay, the Executive Yuan said that it revised the policy by banning all information and communications technology products made by Chinese firms, an Executive Yuan source said on condition of anonymity.
The change was made over concerns about needing to constantly update a list, as well as the difficulty of precisely defining its scope, considering the volume of subsidiary products, the source said.
Federal and local agencies had been instructed to remove all China-made information and communications technology equipment by the end of this year, he said.
Agencies unable to comply must seek approval from the Executive Yuan in a report stating their reasoning and when banned products could be phased out, he added.
The decision is a prudent way to avoid the controversy that can accompany publishing a blacklist, the source said.
Central government agencies had been banned from using equipment made by Huawei Technologies over concerns regarding its links to China’s People’s Liberation Army, but products such as cameras from Hikvision Digital Technology are still widely used due to their competitive pricing, reports have said.
Executive Yuan data released in May showed that 19,256 China-made devices were in use at 2,596 public schools, federal agencies and local governments.
Of these, 717 institutions used 1,848 drones or cameras made by the Shenzhen-based firm Da-Jiang Innovations Technology, the data showed.
Meanwhile, 423 institutions used 1,632 computer networking or recording products from TP-Link Technologies, and 309 agencies or schools used 1,076 camera products from Hikvision, the data showed.
Thousands of bottles of Sriracha have been returned or destroyed after the discovery of excessive sulfur dioxide, a bleaching agent, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday. About 12,600 bottles totaling 9,991.8kg of the hot sauce imported from the US by Emporium Corp (河洛企業) were flagged at the border for containing illegal levels of sulfur dioxide, the FDA said in its regular border inspection announcement. Inspectors discovered 0.5g per kilogram of the common bleaching agent and preservative, higher than the 0.03g permitted, it said. As it is the first time within six months the product has been flagged, Sriracha products from
Two people were killed and another nine injured yesterday after being stung by hornets while hiking in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), with officials warning against wearing perfume or straying from trails during the autumn to avoid the potentially deadly creatures. Seven of the hikers only sustained minor injuries after being stung along the Bafenliao Hiking Trail (八分寮) and made their way down the mountain with a guide, the New Taipei City Fire Department said. Four of them — all male — sustained more serious injuries and were assisted when leaving the mountain, the department said. Two of them, a man surnamed
CHANGES: While NCCU opened the nation’s first co-ed dorm in Mucha, a recent survey showed that Taiwanese are in favor of abolishing gender segregation at high schools National Chengchi University (NCCU) has opened a co-ed dormitory, a first in Taiwan among state-funded Taiwan universities. The 22 duplexes are at the renovated “Huanan New Village,” in Taipei City’s Mucha (木柵) area, near the NCCU campus, a school official said yesterday. Twenty-two out of 37 group applications were selected in a lottery draw to select who would be chosen to live in the units, which can either be shared by up to eight students if the unit has four bedrooms, or up to 10 students if it is a five-bedroom unit, officials said. Completed in 1964 for campus staff housing,
The Ministry of the Interior has banned the use of mirror photos on national identification cards. Taiwanese nationals were required to prepare a front-facing “half-body” color photo or digital photo taken within the past two years when applying for an identification card for the first time, However, the ministry has since removed the term “half-body” in the updated regulation due to complaints regarding its vagueness. Published on Tuesday last week, the amended regulation on the formats and photos of national identification cards includes the stipulation that the length of the portrait from the top of the head to the bottom of the
RSS