Four China-made smartphones have yet to pass an information security test administered by the National Communications Commission (NCC), the telecom authority said yesterday, without disclosing the brands.
The commission in the second half of last year inspected 10 popular smartphones in Taiwan, NCC Department of Infrastructure and Cybersecurity Deputy Director Wu Ming-ren (吳銘仁) said.
“Only iPhones passed on the first go,” Wu said.
“We then informed the other nine smartphone manufacturers — including those from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and China — that they should be tested a second time,” Wu said. “By Tuesday, five — four of which were made in China — had yet to pass the second time.”
A list of the smartphones that passed the NCC-administered information security test is to be published next month, Wu added.
However, the commission did not disclose the brands of the China-made smartphones that had not passed the test.
“Like most countries around the world, information security tests are not mandatory for smartphone manufacturers in Taiwan, and all manufacturers participated in the tests voluntarily,” NCC Vice Chairman and spokesman Wong Po-tsung (翁柏宗) said.
“As a result, we can only monitor potential information security breaches on smartphones through two random inspections per year and regularly publish the results for consumers’ reference,” Wong added.
The commission cannot halt the sales of smartphones that were not tested or that failed, or provide administrative guidance on them, Wong said.
The Taiwan Association of Information and Communication Standards has published guidelines on information security tests, and the commission selected 10 of the items to include in its smartphone test, NCC officials said.
The commission’s test mainly focuses on whether a smartphone can offer adequate personal data protection and if the transmission of data is encrypted, they said.
In other news, the commission denied that it deliberately delayed application reviews for 15 cable television systems interested in having TTV News (台視新聞) air on Channel 52.
The commission by law has six months to review an application, but the review can be extended for another six months if deemed necessary, the officials said.
The period does not include days when officials are waiting for applicants to submit supplementary information, they added.
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