A man surnamed Chiang (江) is facing charges of personal privacy violations and offenses against sexual morality (妨害風化罪) for allegedly collecting and posting images of students on a Web site called Uniform Map.
Chiang, 43, was detained for questioning yesterday by New Taipei City’s criminal investigation unit after New Taipei City Councilor Huang Shu-chun (黃淑君) filed a complaint, saying many young people asked for her help after they found unauthorized pictures of themselves on the Web site.
“They ranged from elementary-school students to senior-high schoolers. Most of them were girls,” Huang said, adding that the number of victims could be close to 1,000 students.
Photo courtesy of New Taipei Councilor Huang Shu-chun
Police said they found that Uniform Map, established by Chiang in 2013, had a big following, with at least 100,000 members across Taiwan, and that the Web site had images of boys and girls dressed in their school uniforms.
Some of the photos were allegedly “stolen,” or downloaded to be posted on social media, they said, adding that images of underage students would get passed around and circulated on other digital platforms and messaging apps without the person’s permission.
Those actions contravene laws protecting copyright, Huang said.
Some pictures also border on indecency or could be deemed sexual content, she added.
After several people filed for a judicial complaint, police tracked down Chiang, seized his computer and electronics, and confiscated his data files to prevent further leaking of personal photos, Huang said.
Police said Chiang told them he owned the Web site, but denied that he had collected indecent images or sexual content. He said he was unaware he had contravened copyright laws.
Chiang is also facing charges of breaching the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法), police said.
Uniform Map also has images of students in uniform from other countries. Most photos are of young female students in short skirts.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
RSS