The digital COVID-19 certificate system is to be updated today to include the bearer’s national ID number, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) announced yesterday amid concerns voiced by insurance companies that the system lacks a feature to prove identity.
The digital certificate, which became available in Taiwan on Jan. 1, serves as proof of vaccination and COVID-19 test results.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) over the weekend asked insurers to allow digital certificates to be used for claims in lieu of diagnosis certificates issued by hospitals, drawing backlash from insurers over the authenticity of information provided by those who file claims, among other concerns.
Photo: CNA
Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said yesterday the update to the system is to take effect this morning at 8am to include national ID numbers.
FSC Chairman Thomas Huang (黃天牧) yesterday held another meeting with local insurers to address their criticism of the commission’s suggestion that policyholders use digital certificates for COVID-19 insurance claims. However, the meeting yielded no conclusion as of 8pm last night.
Insurers were most concerned that the digital certificates still do not show the doctors’ information, which they regard as necessary to curb fraud, despite the inclusion of national ID numbers.
The certificate only specifies which agency conducted the tests, but insurers said that the terms of their policies require the name of the doctor who gave the diagnosis, so that insurers could resolve disputes directly with the physician.
Honoring policies would be difficult without this information, they said.
Additional reporting by Kao Shih-ching
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控) yesterday launched its second testing facility in San Jose, California, to expand advanced chip testing capacity such as burn-in testing to satisfy customers’ rising engineering needs for emerging semiconductor applications, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). ISE Labs Inc, a fully owned subsidiary of ASE, would operate the advanced testing facility. When added to its first facility in nearby Fremont, ISE would double its available research-and-development lab and business space to 150,000m2 in hopes of boosting the US semiconductor supply chain, the company said in a statement. “As the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain reshoring
VALUE: TSMC’s market capitalization far exceeds the combined size of all the Latin American companies on MSCI Inc’s benchmark for emerging markets Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) US$420 billion equity rally this year would get a valuation test this week when it reports earnings, with analysts expecting the chipmaker to raise full-year sales forecasts. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker would probably report a 29 percent increase in second-quarter net income on Thursday, according to the median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. More importantly, analysts from JPMorgan Chase & Co to Morgan Stanley expect it to also raise its full-year sales guidance, justifying another round of valuation expansion. Just like Nvidia Corp, TSMC has become a favorite artificial intelligence (AI)-bet for investors with
The entry of chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) into the elite club of the world’s most valuable companies is further proof that the generative artificial intelligence (AI) revolution is shaking up Wall Street. TSMC, which is listed in Taipei and New York, on Monday briefly broke the US$1-trillion market capitalization barrier, putting it ahead of Tesla Inc as the seventh-most valuable technology giant on the stock market. Also on Monday, Alphabet Inc, Apple Inc and Meta Platforms Inc hit all-time highs. The top 10 of the world’s most valuable companies is headed by Microsoft Corp and Apple, closely followed by
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: The previous shooting targeting a US president or major party candidate was the 1981 incident targeting then-US president Ronald Reagan Saturday’s shooting at former US president Donald Trump’s election rally raises his odds of winning back the White House, and trades betting on his victory would increase this coming week, investors said yesterday. Trump was shot in the ear during the rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday in what the authorities were treating as an assassination attempt. Trump, his face spattered with blood, pumped his fist moments after the attack, and his campaign said he was fine after the incident. Before the shooting, markets had reacted to the prospect of a Trump presidency by pushing the US dollar higher and positioning for a