A former technician at the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been convicted of illegally downloading documents related to Taiwan’s indigenous missile systems and sentenced to eight months in prison.
From 2018 to 2019, Peng Yu-cheng (彭禹誠), who worked at the institute’s Systems Development Center, made unauthorized downloads of classified files relating to the research and development of advanced missile systems — including the Hsiung Feng (雄風) and Tien Chien (天劍) series, the Taoyuan District Court ruling said.
An internal investigation found that he downloaded the information into his work computer’s personal file folder by entering the main server room after work hours or coming to work early when computer administrators were not around, it said.
Institute officials reported that upon discovering Peng’s actions, the center handed him two demerit points as a penalty and moved him to another position, while changing the password to deny him access to the main server.
Prosecutors conducted an investigation in 2019 and indicted Peng the following year on charges of breaching the Classified National Security Information Protection Act (國家機密保護法), which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
During the investigation, prosecutors found that Peng in April 2020 deleted the downloaded files from his personal folder to destroy the evidence.
However, surveillance camerage footage and other evidence revealed that he had deleted the files when an administrator forgot to log out.
Peng was subsequently indicted under the Criminal Code on charges of “deleting files from a computer without reason, causing damage to the public,” which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
As the investigation did not find proof that Peng had passed the files on to another person, or that he was involved in Chinese espionage to subvert national security, the charges of contravening the Classified National Security Information Protection Act were dropped.
Instead, he was convicted of charges pertaining to computer-related offenses, for which he was given a sentence of eight months in prison.
Peng resigned from his job at the institute at the end of 2020 after he was indicted.
Additional reporting by Lee Juo-ping and Chen En-hui
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