After more than two years’ delay, the Personal Information Protection Act (個人資料保護法) finally came into effect on Oct. 1. However, many people, including officials from the Ministry of Justice, remain completely ignorant of the spirit of the law. The legislation aims to extend “personal rights” in our information society to respect the personal data autonomy of every person. Collecting, processing and using personal data should be done in accordance with the law and should, in principle, require the consent of the person concerned.
A look at the two-year process leading to the amendment of this piece of legislation shows that the media have expressed concern that it will jeopardize press freedom, causing the Legislative Yuan to make a U-turn to meet their demands.
When the law passed the third reading in the legislature in April 2010, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights issued a statement saying that by granting exceptions to the law — such as for academic research, crime prevention and public interest — the new version of the law departed from the spirit of personal data autonomy.
Observations from the Taiwan Association for Human Rights have proven the pessimistic predictions on Taiwan’s personal data protection, and, even more worrying, the government’s various decisions over this period seem intended to destroy the law.
Originally, the act was intended as a defensive weapon for the public against the powerful, but it has since lost its clout and has been interfered with by the government and some private institutions, such as the financial, medical and telecommunication sectors. For example, the Bureau of National Health Insurance ignored the most fundamental principle of the law and sold confidential health data.
Another example is how the government released telephone numbers and addresses of relatives of victims of the White Terror era, thus causing more pain to the families involved.
The government has also arbitrarily blocked the publication of historical data with the excuse that it is protecting third parties. This hinders transitional justice, even though the law does not apply to the deceased.
When people open bank accounts, they are required to provide personal information as if they are signing a contract to sell themselves. However, banks claim that such requirements are in accordance with the law.
In another case, one person who sought his personal data from the government was flatly rejected by the agency in question, which claimed that it was unable to provide the data because of the new law.
Furthermore, in some cases, prosecutors have even omitted important personal information, including the names of suspects, in their indictments, garnering much media attention by turning indictments into mysterious documents that nobody can understand.
During the legislative process, the government and public used “EU Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data” as a blueprint in the hope that they would be able to construct comprehensive protection for personal information in Taiwan.
Obviously, the government failed to gain a comprehensive understanding of the meaning of the directive. The uneven quality of the legislative process resulted in a cut-and-paste job as legislators came up with a disappointing law.
In November 2010, the European Commission actually passed a resolution to review the insufficiencies of the 1995 directive, and proposed a reform plan to the European Parliament at the beginning of this year.
The plan aims to strengthen member states’ supervision of the authorities in charge of personal information protection. The EU has repeatedly recognized the importance of personal data autonomy and protection, highlighting the significance of such rights while urging member states to fully protect them.
Judging from the legislative process that has led to Taiwan’s Personal Information Protection Act, the government’s selective implementation of some articles and the distortion of the purpose of the law by some groups, the government has failed to protect the personal rights and privacy endowed by the Constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Today, personal data protection is just a dream, and one must be wary that the government will use the Personal Information Protection Act as a way to shirk responsibility while at the same time invading people’s privacy.
Tsai Chi-hsun is secretary-general of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
Translated by Eddy Chang
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in recent days was the focus of the media due to his role in arranging a Chinese “student” group to visit Taiwan. While his team defends the visit as friendly, civilized and apolitical, the general impression is that it was a political stunt orchestrated as part of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, as its members were mainly young communists or university graduates who speak of a future of a unified country. While Ma lived in Taiwan almost his entire life — except during his early childhood in Hong Kong and student years in the US —
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers on Monday unilaterally passed a preliminary review of proposed amendments to the Public Officers Election and Recall Act (公職人員選罷法) in just one minute, while Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, government officials and the media were locked out. The hasty and discourteous move — the doors of the Internal Administration Committee chamber were locked and sealed with plastic wrap before the preliminary review meeting began — was a great setback for Taiwan’s democracy. Without any legislative discussion or public witnesses, KMT Legislator Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩), the committee’s convener, began the meeting at 9am and announced passage of the
Prior to marrying a Taiwanese and moving to Taiwan, a Chinese woman, surnamed Zhang (張), used her elder sister’s identity to deceive Chinese officials and obtain a resident identity card in China. After marrying a Taiwanese, surnamed Chen (陳) and applying to move to Taiwan, Zhang continued to impersonate her sister to obtain a Republic of China ID card. She used the false identity in Taiwan for 18 years. However, a judge ruled that her case does not constitute forgery and acquitted her. Does this mean that — as long as a sibling agrees — people can impersonate others to alter, forge
In response to a failure to understand the “good intentions” behind the use of the term “motherland,” a professor from China’s Fudan University recklessly claimed that Taiwan used to be a colony, so all it needs is a “good beating.” Such logic is risible. The Central Plains people in China were once colonized by the Mongolians, the Manchus and other foreign peoples — does that mean they also deserve a “good beating?” According to the professor, having been ruled by the Cheng Dynasty — named after its founder, Ming-loyalist Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功, also known as Koxinga) — as the Kingdom of Tungning,
RSS