Amnesty International Taiwan yesterday called for the establishment of a dedicated oversight body for the government’s planned electronic identification card (eID) program, citing potential privacy and security concerns.
The NT$3.3 billion (US$118.45 million at the current exchange rate) eID program was initiated by the Ministry of the Interior to replace national IDs with cards containing electronic chips that store personal information.
The government initially planned to introduce the IDs in October last year, but the launch was postponed due to the local COVID-19 outbreak, and criticism of the project for lacking public consultation and transparency in the tendering process.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Amnesty International Taiwan secretary-general Chiu Ee-ling (邱伊翎) told a news conference in Taipei that academics and human rights groups were concerned over the possible risks of using an eID, including the potential for data leaks and government abuse of personal information.
“In Taiwan, we still have not established comprehensive mechanisms and a legal framework for cybersecurity. Under such conditions, forcing the eID scheme on the public could result in serious problems such as the invasion of privacy and the leaking of data on individuals,” she said.
“It also makes it very easy for government agencies to track all aspects of people’s daily lives and enables tight authoritarian control on society,” Chiu added.
Citing a study on the eID scheme that drew on other countries’ experiences with such programs, she said that Germany passed laws to restrict the scope of such IDs, including where and in what capacity the data contained in them could be used.
Chiu said that the ministry often cited the use of eIDs in Estonia as an example when promoting the scheme.
However, Estonia suspended the eIDs of 800,000 people due to a security threat in 2018, she said. There were news reports last month regarding hackers that allegedly breached the system and stole nearly 300,000 ID photographs from Estonia’s database.
Along with calling for new cybersecurity laws and an independent regulatory body to oversee the program, Chiu and others demanded that the government allow people the choice to continue using traditional IDs.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) added that the use of eIDs also presents national security concerns due to the constant threat of attack from hackers in China.
New Power Party Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said the scheme must consider privacy concerns and potential human rights issues.
“The current laws and regulatory bodies are insufficient for security protection and safety for use of eIDs,” he said.
TRICKED INTO MOVING: Local governments in China do not offer any help, and Taiwanese there must compete with Chinese in an unfamiliar setting, a researcher said Beijing’s incentives for Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in China are only intended to lure them across the Taiwan Strait, after which they receive no real support, an expert said on Sunday. Over the past few years, Beijing has been offering a number of incentives that “benefit Taiwanese in name, while benefiting China in reality,” a cross-strait affairs expert said on condition of anonymity. Strategies such as the “31 incentives” are intended to lure Taiwanese talent, capital and technology to help address China’s economic issues while also furthering its “united front” efforts, they said. Local governments in China do not offer much practical
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
PUBLIC POLL: More than half believe Chinese drills would make Taiwanese less willing to unify with China, while 36 percent said an invasion was highly unlikely Half of Taiwanese support independence, according to the results of a poll released yesterday by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation, which also found that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) support rating fell by 7 percentage points. Fifty percent of respondents supported independence, 25.7 percent supported maintaining the “status quo” and 11.8 percent supported unification, while 12.1 percent had no opinion, did not know or refused to answer, the foundation said. Support for independence is the new mainstream opinion, regardless of which party is in power, foundation chairman Michael You (游盈隆) said. Insinuations that Taiwan wants to maintain the “status quo” are a fabrication that
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
RSS