People whose telecom access has been restricted or cut multiple times due to their involvement in telecom scams would be listed as high-risk users and would be limited to three telephone number applications for three years, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
The policy is one of the measures to be implemented by the regulator following the passage of the Fraud Hazard Prevention Act (詐欺犯罪危害防制法) in July.
The commission has formed a united front to deter telecom fraud with the National Police Agency (NPA), the National Immigration Agency (NIA) and the High Prosecutors’ Office, NCC Secretary-General Huang Wen-je (黃文哲) told a news conference.
Photo: Lin Chih-yi, Taipei Times
To help prevent telecom services from being used to commit fraud or other crimes, the commission is working with telecoms, the NPA and the NIA to develop a system that would allow telecoms to access the NIA database and the NPA’s 165 anti-fraud hotline, Huang said.
The connections are expected to be operational from November, he said.
If telecoms are notified by police that they need to reauthenticate the identity of an applicant, they can use the databases to verify the information, he said.
“If telecoms are notified multiple times to stop or restrict a user’s access to services due to their involvement in telecom fraud, the nation’s three telecoms must list the user as ‘high risk,’ meaning they would only be allowed to apply for one telephone number or one service from each company for three years,” he said.
The NCC is discussing with NPA officials how many times the telecoms should be notified before they can blacklist a user, Huang said, adding that the matter should be finalized before the end of this year.
Although the measure would not prohibit high-risk users from applying for services from more than one provider, they can expect many questions whenever they apply, NCC officials said.
The act would also tackle fraud arising from the abuse of international roaming services offered by high-risk offshore telecom operators.
People need not use their real names to purchase roaming services online, also known as blackberry cards, nor do they always need to present two forms of identification.
The act requires telecoms to verify whether the person who seeks to activate an international roaming service actually enters Taiwan, and they can do so by accessing the NIA’s database, Huang said.
The NCC is assessing the criteria it would use to determine whether an offshore telecom is a high-risk operator, including the number of times their services are used to commit fraud and whether they sell prepaid services without requiring two forms of ID.
To properly address disputes arising from the use of international roaming services, Huang said that the commission would take into consideration whether the country where a potential high-risk offshore telecom is based in has a mutual legal assistance deal with Taiwan.
“We would also monitor if the services offered by the high-risk offshore telecom were implicated in fraud reported in other countries or by international organizations,” he said.
“China is preparing to invade Taiwan,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an exclusive interview with British media channel Sky News for a special report titled, “Is Taiwan ready for a Chinese invasion?” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today in a statement. The 25-minute-long special report by Helen Ann-Smith released yesterday saw Sky News travel to Penghu, Taoyuan and Taipei to discuss the possibility of a Chinese invasion and how Taiwan is preparing for an attack. The film observed emergency response drills, interviewed baseball fans at the Taipei Dome on their views of US President
ECONOMIC BENEFITS: The imports from Belize would replace those from Honduras, whose shrimp exports have dropped 67 percent since cutting ties in 2023 Maintaining ties with Taiwan has economic benefits, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials said yesterday, citing the approval of frozen whiteleg shrimp imports from Belize by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an example. The FDA on Wednesday approved the tariff-free imports from Belize after the whiteleg shrimp passed the Systematic Inspection of Imported Food, which would continue to boost mutual trade, the ministry said. Taiwan’s annual consumption of whiteleg shrimps stands at 30,000 tonnes, far exceeding domestic production, the ministry said. Taiwan used to fill the gap by importing shrimps from Honduras, but purchases slumped after Tegucigalpa severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan
The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a southwestern extension of the Sanying MRT Line from New Taipei to Bade District (八德) in Taoyuan, with a goal of starting construction by late 2026. The 4.03-kilometer extension, featuring three new stations, will run from the current terminus at Yingtao Fude Station (LB12) in New Taipei City to Dannan Station (LB14), where it will connect with Taoyuan’s Green Line, New Taipei City Metro Corp said in a statement. This extension will follow the completion of core Sanying Line, a 14.29-kilometer medium-capacity system linking Tucheng (土城), Sansia (三峽)
CARGO LOSS: About 50 containers at the stern of the ‘Ever Lunar’ cargo ship went overboard, prompting the temporary closure of the port and disrupting operations Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan’s largest container shipper, yesterday said that all crew members aboard the Ever Lunar (長月) were safe after dozens of containers fell overboard off the coast of Peru the previous day. The incident occurred at 9:40am on Friday as the Ever Lunar was anchored and waiting to enter the Port of Callao when it suddenly experienced severe rolling, Evergreen said in a statement. The rolling, which caused the containers to fall, might have been caused by factors including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Russia, poor winter sea conditions in South America or a sudden influx of waves,
RSS