I was flipping through the Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) the other day and was surprised to see that someone had used a copy of a Class 2 land deed to obtain someone else’s personal information to commit fraud.
It appears that anyone could apply to access someone’s personal details, including addresses and banking information.
At the end of the article, the reporter took care to create a small glossary, where they recommended that people go to their local land bureau office and apply to have their land and property holdings information withheld from public access.
After reading the article, I headed straight to the land bureau office to inquire how to make my personal information private.
I had to take an original form of personal identification and my seal. When I got to the office, I saw a horde of people waiting to be served.
Even with the kindness and diligence of volunteers and office workers, I was stuck there for quite some time.
I waited ages for my number to be called and was immediately asked to provide a photocopy of my identification and to sign an application form. It is absurd that one has to go through so much inconvenience just to apply to protect one’s private information.
I suddenly realized that much of the land bureau data was tied to the openness or restrictiveness of the system’s design. Frankly, the level of security is weaker than the security settings for a Facebook account.
With fraud rampant, many operations that deal with personal information should prioritize the protection of users.
Bank account booklets are pretty valuable to scammers and crime rings. They are a hot commodity to be included in a criminal’s toolbox, yet the holder does not even need to present any identification if they want to walk into a bank to ask for a new one.
Bank tellers should be asking to see the person’s health insurance card at a bare minimum.
Several literary award organizations ask competition participants to provide a copy of some form of personal identification.
The organizers of the Lin Rong San Foundation of Culture and Social Welfare Literary Award do not initially require identification, but other award organizations do. The identification documentation is mostly used for tax reporting purposes.
With hundreds of participants and only a handful receiving an award in the end, organizers end up collecting many photocopies of identification cards. Should any unscrupulous person use them, it could result in a massive breach of personal data, which could lead to a heap of litigation.
Why would an entrant in these award competitions need to present identification before they have even won anything?
In many organizations, divisions at all levels are required to collect personal information from the public for the sake of providing services. If the goal is to simplify everything as much as possible, the onus should be on verifying that the service applicant is who they say they are and whether they are aiming to commit a crime.
If no one’s identity is verified in person, or if there is no reasonable suspicion, then what is the point of collecting all that personal data?
The postal service is an amazingly efficient organization when it comes to performing checks. I went last week to cancel a deposit, and my account had only a couple thousand or so New Taiwan dollars in it.
The worker behind the counter asked me what I was planning to do with the money. When I answered that I was not withdrawing any cash, the expression on their face softened.
Fortunately, Taiwan has a dream team of low-level employees, such as bank tellers, police officers, government office workers and all sorts of volunteers to help maintain social order.
In addition to giving my thanks, the government ought to create a law or change the process so that people do not need to bury themselves alive in useless paperwork just to stop fraud.
Jimmy Hsu is a farmer.
Translated by Tim Smith
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