Representatives of childcare workers yesterday called on lawmakers to abandon planned rules that would require surveillance footage of their facilities to be uploaded to the cloud, citing privacy and dignity concerns.
Article 30 of the draft childcare services bill says that to ensure the safety of children and to preserve evidence, childcare facilities must install surveillance systems, ensure that the system would not be tampered with or damaged, and keep data on-site for at least 30 days in encrypted form, with copies of the footage uploaded to a cloud server established and maintained by the local government.
The bill says that the data must be uploaded to a government server to preserve evidence that would help establish facts in childcare abuse cases, as well as clarifying matters for parents and childcare service operators.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
Industry representatives protested against the planned rules outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday.
Chinese United General Association of Maternity, Infant, and Childcare and Education director-general Chiang Shu-jung (蔣叔融) told the rally that uploading footage of children to the cloud in an age of rampant cyberattacks was a deeply concerning plan.
It is outrageous that a small group of people have unilaterally made the decision to require that the footage be uploaded, Chiang said, adding that the privacy of the children would be compromised.
Legislation that deals with surveillance footage must guarantee the privacy of children, help establish a professional, respectful and friendly childcare industry, improve the internal management and professionalism of childcare facilities, and establish a bilateral agreement and a code of conduct regarding such footage, Chiang said.
A mother of five, surnamed Chen (陳), said that the proposed policy would discourage parents from sending their children to care facilities due to concerns that their children’s privacy would be breached.
Representatives of New Taipei City facilities said that the municipal government employs a significant number of male childcare staff and parents of girls often ask that male staff be excluded from diaper-changing duties for their children.
Parents are already distrustful of personnel, so they would not be comfortable with footage going online, the representatives said, adding that even Taiwanese jails do not mandate the preservation of footage for 30 days.
The bill was proposed following the death of a one-and-a-half-year-old child known as Kai Kai (剴剴) on Dec. 24, 2023, allegedly due to long-term abuse at the hands of carers.
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