Allegations the police would triangulate and track the mobile phones of protesters are false, National Police Agency Director-General Chang Jung-hsin (張榮興) told the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee yesterday.
Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) also told the committee that she was unaware if anyone was handling or obtaining such information at the ministry.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Chih-lun (張智倫) asked about Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Policy Committee director-general Wang Yi-chuan’s (王義川) comments on a political talk show that protesters could be located based on their phone signals and such information could be used to analyze the ages of those protesting outside the Legislative Yuan.
Photo: Tu Chien-fa, Taipei Times
Wang on a SET News TV show added that the people gathered in front of the Legislative Yuan on Tuesday did not overlap with those who participated in the Sunflower movement in 2014.
Chang said that the police would not attempt to track members of the public via phone signals, adding “most certainly not” for emphasis.
Chang said he did not know who would have access to such information.
Liu said she mostly paid attention to how the police maintained law and order during protests, adding that she was also unclear whether anyone was handling or obtaining telecom data at the ministry.
When asked by Chang whether she supported legislative reform, she said she supported such changes as long as they are constitutional.
Separately, National Communications Commission Secretary-General Huang Wen-che (黃文哲) yesterday said that the commission was unclear about the situation or how Wang obtained the data.
The commission said it would launch an investigation into whether the three major telecoms illegally collected and used personal information.
Using geolocation services on phones to estimate the number of attendees at events is a known fact, Huang said, adding that people were more concerned about whether personal information had been leaked.
If the data cited by Wang served only to reference the number of people gathered in an area it would not fall under the jurisdiction of the Personal Data Protection Act (個別資料保護法), he said.
He said the commission would have to investigate the issue to determine whether personal information had been leaked and whether the Personal Data Protection Act had been contravened.
Huang said that the commission had received a complaint regarding the SET News report for failure to verify its sources.
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