CRIME
Porn deepfaker sentenced
The creator of nonconsensual deepfake pornography featuring the likenesses of 119 people was handed a five-year custodial sentence by the High Court on Thursday. YouTuber Chu Yu-chen (朱玉宸) in July last year was found guilty of contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) for using peoples’ likenesses in pornographic videos, including Kaohsiung City Councilor Huang Jie (黃捷), Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜) and social media influencer Ili Cheng (鄭家純). Chu, along with his assistant Chuang Hsin-jui (莊炘睿), allegedly earned more than NT$13 million (US$422,971), court documents showed. Prosecutors appealed the New Taipei District Court’s decision to allow Chu, known on social media as Xiaoyu (小玉), to pay a fine, arguing that his sentence was too lenient. Thursday’s decision means Chu’s five-year sentence cannot be commuted to a fine, pending appeal. Chu might also need to serve 20 additional months if he is unable to pay a fine after the High Court imposed sentencing enhancements. The High Court increased Chuang’s sentence to four-and-a-half years from three years and eight months, commutable to a fine. Chuang’s sentence can also be appealed.
FOOD
FDA unveils pesticide data
Sixty-eight samples of fresh fruits and vegetables failed pesticide residue testing in September and October, while nearly 91 percent of goods were deemed acceptable, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Wednesday. Of the 754 tested domestic and imported agricultural products, 686 passed and 68 were deemed substandard, the agency said. FDA Deputy Director Lin Chin-fu (林金富) told reporters that the producers responsible for 11 of the substandard products were fined a combined NT$360,000 as stipulated by the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), while 37 domestic products were handed over to agricultural agencies, as the Agro-pesticides Management Act (農藥管理法) stipulates. The other 20 products were still being assessed, Lin said. Some of the products were from hotels and supermarkets, including chili from the Hotel Fleur de Chine in Nantou County, in which 0.7 parts per million of imidacloprid was detected, as well as organic burdock and grapefruit from Taoyuan’s Far Eastern A.Mart, which contained chlorpyrifos, a banned pesticide, the FDA said. In 2020, 90.2 percent of goods passed, 91.6 percent passed in 2021 and 92.2 percent passed last year, Lin said, adding that there was no significant change in this year’s data. However, the public should remain careful when buying seasonal produce, he added.
SOCIETY
Finger’s owner sought
Police in Taitung are trying to identify and contact a woman who apparently severed part of a finger in a motorcycle crash on Wednesday. Fongrong Neighborhood (豐榮) Chief Shih Hao-hsuan (施皓軒) said the incident occurred on Wednesday afternoon when a woman crashed her motorcycle on Hanyang N Road, and then got up and drove off. Bystanders who checked on her said that after she left, they found a severed finger on the ground, whereupon they contacted him, Shih wrote on Facebook. Shih said he immediately contacted the police and fire departments, which notified the Taitung Public Health Bureau to report the missing finger to area hospitals. None of the hospitals were treating anyone for a severed finger, he said, adding that authorities are keeping the digit cold and are in close contact with area hospitals.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
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