From Monday next week, businesses must be registered on telecoms’ “white lists” before they can send text messages containing Web links or phone numbers, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
The measure aims to curb scams through text messages, the commission said.
Article 2 of the Fraud Hazard Prevention Act (詐欺犯罪危害防制條例) authorizes telecoms to improve anti-fraud mechanisms for commercial text messaging.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
As of last month, more than 400,000 fraud-related text messages had been distributed this year, NCC data showed.
As a text message can contain no more than 80 Chinese characters, many scammers send targets to Web pages by including links, some of which are shortened to hide their destination, NCC Secretary-General Huang Wen-che (黃文哲) said.
Businesses must from Monday next week apply with telecoms if they want to include Web links and phone numbers in commercial text messages, Huang said.
Once their applications are approved, they must register the links and phone numbers that would be included in their text messages, he said.
Only messages containing those registered links and phone numbers would be distributed, he said.
Businesses must reapply if they want to change the registered information, he added.
The content of all commercial text messages would be subject to scrutiny, and telecoms should not deliver messages that contain unregistered links and phone numbers or come from businesses that have yet to secure approval to send messages, Huang said.
Telecoms should expedite delivery of text messages sent from reliable corporate customers, he said.
As for potential scams committed through text messages sent by individuals, Huang said that while those are protected by the constitutional right of freedom of correspondence, individuals would not be able to send more than 50 text messages per day, and would be subject to criminal penalties if they were found to have used text messages to commit fraud.
In other news, Minister of Digital Affairs Huang Yen-nun (黃彥男) told lawmakers at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee that starting next year online advertising platforms are to adopt a real-name system to regulate advertisers in order to curb fraud.
The ministry has rolled out a series of supporting measures since the Fraud Hazard Prevention Act entered into force in July. One of them is to require Google, Line, Meta and TikTok to take down fraudulent advertisements within 24 hours after being notified. Advertisers on the platforms must use their real names to register.
Several government-funded banks and corporations have said they would pull their ads from large digital platforms that do not require advertisers to register using real names.
“All large digital platforms are adjusting their systems to comply with anti-fraud regulations,” he said. “The real-name system would first apply to high-risk advertisers, such as those that feature celebrities in their advertisements or run large quantities of advertisements,” he said.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
RSS