The Taipei City Government yesterday vowed to ensure all municipal devices are provided by secure sources, after city councilors alleged that 19 municipal offices used attendance machines which were made or assembled in China and Thailand, and had fingerprint collection and facial recognition capabilities.
Eight agencies procured Chinese-made machines, while 11 agencies bought machines that were assembled in Thailand, but are mainly made of components produced in China, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) told a news conference at Taipei City Hall.
The city’s use of those attendance machines is a breach of the cybersecurity guidelines issued by the central government, she said, adding that the Thai machines were on a blacklist on the National Communications Commission’s Web site.
Photo: Yang Hsin-hui, Taipei Times
Forty Taipei City Government offices and agencies bought new biometric attendance machines after the municipality ordered measures to be taken to stop city employees from cheating by having colleagues clock in for them, she added.
Although the municipal government said the machines were connected to the agencies’ internal network and likely did not pose a cybersecurity threat, Lin said she disagreed with this assessment.
The central government’s guidelines had urged public bureaucratic organizations to be cautious when ordering digital products and services, she added.
The failure of the Taipei City Government to follow cybersecurity standards called into question the security of city residents’ personal information in municipal systems, DPP Taipei City Councilor Yen Juo-fang (顏若芳) said.
The city’s procurement process must be reviewed to weed out Chinese-made technology products assembled in a third country and all biometric attendance systems should be checked for their place of origin, Yen said.
A representative of the Taipei Department of Information Technology at the news conference did not dispute the city councilor’s allegations.
The agency would intensify its efforts on supervising city offices’ compliance with regulations, the representative said.
City agencies would submit all procurement plans to the department for evaluation and approval to help avoid the problem, they added.
A representative of the Taipei Public Works Department said the machines might have slipped through the cracks, as the city government did not require subordinate offices to write contracts for small-volume purchases.
The Taipei Department of Information Technology is launching a probe into any potential harm to cybersecurity caused by the attendance machines, department commissioner Chao Shih-lung (趙式隆) said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
MORE RETALIATION: China would adopt a long-term pressure strategy to prevent other countries or future prime ministers following in Sanae Takaichi’s steps, an academic said Taiwan should maintain communications with Japan, as Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is to lead a revision of security documents, Taiwanese academics said yesterday. Tensions have risen between Japan and China over remarks by Takaichi earlier this month that the use of force against Taiwan would constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan. Prospect Foundation president Lai I-chung (賴怡忠) yesterday said Takaichi’s stance regarding Taiwan is the same as past Japanese prime ministers, but her position is clearer than that of her predecessors Fumio Kishida and Shigeru Ishiba. Although Japan views a “Taiwan contingency” as a “survival-threatening situation,” which would allow its military to
RSS