The Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) on Tuesday announced the upcoming launch of a Web site to report online fraud and that a NT$10 billion (US$313 million) investment plan to bolster artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups is expected to start accepting applications next year.
The anti-fraud reporting and inquiry Web site and its mobile app version are undergoing internal testing, while the ministry is coordinating with other government agencies to streamline administrative procedures, Minister of Digital Affairs Huang Yen-nun (黃彥男) said.
“Once the testing is complete and we receive approval from the Executive Yuan, we will make the system publicly available,” Huang said.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
In addition to accepting reports from the public, the Web site would use information obtained through an AI-powered fraud-scanning service provided by the National Institute of Cyber Security, Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-jing (林宜敬) said.
The ministry would also use AI to assign the reported cases for verification with authorities, Lin said.
For confirmed fraud, the ministry would notify platforms such as Google, Facebook, Line and Instagram to remove the fraudulent content, he added.
Lin did not provide a specific date for the Web site’s launch, but said that the ministry is being careful to ensure it is thoroughly tested for security and to ensure smooth operations before rolling it out publicly.
The ministry wants the public to be able to quickly determine whether a piece of information is potentially fraudulent, or is already a confirmed scam, Lin said.
The site aims to expedite the case assignment process for dealing with fraud, as previously it could take several days for different government agencies to manually process documents to confirm whether a piece of information was suspicious or fraudulent, he said.
The Web site and app are currently in Chinese only, and further discussions are needed to determine whether interfaces in other languages would be developed, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, the growth and success of Taiwan’s digital economy would depend heavily on AI, Huang said.
“As one of the significant limitations in AI development is funding, we hope to provide those start-ups with sufficient resources to support their growth,” he said.
The management committee of the National Development Council on Aug. 9 approved the investment enhancement implementation plan for AI start-ups with an allocation of NT$10 billion over a 10-year period, he said.
MODA has initiated preparatory work for the investment plan, including holding discussions on operational regulations and the establishment of an office, with the goal of formally accepting investment applications next year, he said.
Administration for Digital Industries Deputy Director-General Lin Jiunn-shiow (林俊秀) said that the scope of investment includes domestic AI start-ups and companies related to the digital economy, covering areas such as discriminative AI, based on supervised learning, and generative AI, systems that can generate new content.
The investments would primarily focus on Taiwanese companies, including those founded by foreign nationals, while funded projects have the potential to receive approval for overseas conversion, such as by establishing operations abroad to meet the company’s internationalization needs, he said.
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