The government’s poor response to abuse of its digital ID system highlights its inability to efficiently handle cybersecurity issues and is exposing the public to great risks, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko Ju-chun (葛如均) said yesterday.
The government has promoted the Natural Person Certificate system as a critical infrastructure for e-governance, with about 8 million of the digital certificates issued and half that in use, Ko said.
However, among bank accounts flagged as “watched,” four times as many were opened using a Natural Person Certificate than were opened using other forms of identification, Ko said, citing Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) data.
Photo: Chen Yi-kuan, Taipei Times
Scammers might be tricking many people into divulging their information, allowing them to fraudulently apply for the certificates and use them to open bank accounts, he said.
At least 17 banks, state-owned and private, have suspended the use of the certificates as identification, he said.
The government’s response has been absurd, including suggesting that people turn off digital messaging services, setting limits on fund transfers, and asking banks to suspend withdrawals and transactions for accounts that have been inactive for half a year, he said.
The government’s inability to offer solutions — while oppressing the KMT, which is providing oversight — shows that that it is not trustworthy, Ko said.
The passage of the Electronic Signature Act (電子簽章法) last year means that the government should have introduced other security measures, such as the Fast Identity Online standard, multifactor authentication, biometrics or limiting operations to bound cellphones, he said.
Instead, the Ministry of Digital Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior, the FSC and the National Police Agency are passing the buck and no action has been taken, he said.
The government has other things to worry about in its digital governance, he said.
On May 30, a Google Security Blog post outlined how Chrome had lost confidence in the reliability of Chunghwa Telecom as a certification authority, meaning the Web browser would soon start issuing warnings when people visit government sites, he said.
Meanwhile, Dire Wolf, a hacker group, claimed credit for a breach of Kiwi86’s servers and is holding ransom 20GB of the insurance system service provider’s data, he said.
The public cannot trust the state-sponsored digital ID system, which creates a lack of security and undermines any further attempts to establish digital autonomy, Ko said.
Government agencies should stop promising lots and delivering little, and instead do their jobs, which is to make Taiwan a haven for digital technology developers, not scammers, he added.
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