People whose telecom access has been restricted or cut multiple times due to their involvement in telecom scams would be listed as high-risk users and would be limited to three telephone number applications for three years, the National Communications Commission (NCC) said yesterday.
The policy is one of the measures to be implemented by the regulator following the passage of the Fraud Hazard Prevention Act (詐欺犯罪危害防制法) in July.
The commission has formed a united front to deter telecom fraud with the National Police Agency (NPA), the National Immigration Agency (NIA) and the High Prosecutors’ Office, NCC Secretary-General Huang Wen-je (黃文哲) told a news conference.
Photo: Lin Chih-yi, Taipei Times
To help prevent telecom services from being used to commit fraud or other crimes, the commission is working with telecoms, the NPA and the NIA to develop a system that would allow telecoms to access the NIA database and the NPA’s 165 anti-fraud hotline, Huang said.
The connections are expected to be operational from November, he said.
If telecoms are notified by police that they need to reauthenticate the identity of an applicant, they can use the databases to verify the information, he said.
“If telecoms are notified multiple times to stop or restrict a user’s access to services due to their involvement in telecom fraud, the nation’s three telecoms must list the user as ‘high risk,’ meaning they would only be allowed to apply for one telephone number or one service from each company for three years,” he said.
The NCC is discussing with NPA officials how many times the telecoms should be notified before they can blacklist a user, Huang said, adding that the matter should be finalized before the end of this year.
Although the measure would not prohibit high-risk users from applying for services from more than one provider, they can expect many questions whenever they apply, NCC officials said.
The act would also tackle fraud arising from the abuse of international roaming services offered by high-risk offshore telecom operators.
People need not use their real names to purchase roaming services online, also known as blackberry cards, nor do they always need to present two forms of identification.
The act requires telecoms to verify whether the person who seeks to activate an international roaming service actually enters Taiwan, and they can do so by accessing the NIA’s database, Huang said.
The NCC is assessing the criteria it would use to determine whether an offshore telecom is a high-risk operator, including the number of times their services are used to commit fraud and whether they sell prepaid services without requiring two forms of ID.
To properly address disputes arising from the use of international roaming services, Huang said that the commission would take into consideration whether the country where a potential high-risk offshore telecom is based in has a mutual legal assistance deal with Taiwan.
“We would also monitor if the services offered by the high-risk offshore telecom were implicated in fraud reported in other countries or by international organizations,” he said.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
RSS