The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday announced that it would spend NT$1.85 billion (US$57.66 million) over the next four years on improving food safety, most notably by expanding the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
The ministry at a Cabinet meeting briefed Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) on its AI-enhanced food safety plans focusing on three key areas: food source risk management, chain of custody certification and community monitoring.
The Executive Yuan approved the new food safety management plan in August, the ministry said.
Photo courtesy of the Executive Yuan
Food safety is central to the government’s agenda, Cabinet spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Cho as saying during the meeting, as he urged the ministry to carefully carry out the initiative.
The plan requires a budget increase of about 73 percent from NT$186.2 million this year to NT$321.4 million next year, a NT$135.1 million difference, Lee cited Cho as saying.
The policy is part of a broader agenda termed the “five strikes and seven safeties,” which refer to five types of crime — organized, financial, gun, drug and fraud — the government wants to tackle, and seven safety issues — public, food, road, occupational, school, housing and cybersecurity — that the ministry is to uphold, she said.
The project uses AI and digital technology to promote four key tasks: export development; improved management of specific industries such as cold chain storage; monitoring of heavy metals in food products; and analysis of international food advertising regulations, the ministry said.
AI would also be used to optimize risk management and early warning mechanisms for food safety incidents, in addition to providing services for the public and regulating food advertisements, it said.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it would continue to improve its food safety management policies, including enhancing cooperation with local officials on food inspections, increasing its capacity for inspections, refining management of imported food sources and expanding its international food risk alert monitoring.
The FDA said it would also coordinate cross-ministerial inspections to support digital initiatives, and reinforce food safety and hygiene precautions.
HACKERS’ MARKET: Chat logs about Taiwan and documents outlining ways to take over online accounts were leaked from a company that sells data from hacks Taiwanese cybersecurity specialists found 577 leaked documents which show that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan through cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, a documentary released last month by Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed. The filmmakers behind Tracking China’s Leaked Documents said they spent six months visiting seven countries, including Taiwan, where they interviewed members of TeamT5, a malware research and cybersecurity firm, which found the leaked documents. TeamT5 said they discovered a string of mysterious URLs on the social media platform X, which they suspected could be accounts created by hackers or people who leaked data, which led
The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山). Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage. For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours. Meanwhile, for e-bikes,
RESOURCE RICH: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and has up to 30 gigawatts of the potential energy, of which 10 gigawatts could be economically viable Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山). The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said. “While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony. Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future
‘CHINESE BLOCKADE’: Preparations include securing rice stockpiles and fish feed inventories, and storing food across the nation to lower attack risks The government yesterday offered rare details of its wartime food plan, saying it is taking monthly inventories of crucial supplies such as rice and making sure they are properly stored across the nation in case of a Chinese blockade. China has over the past five years staged almost daily military activities around Taiwan, including war games that have practiced blockades and attacks on ports. China’s latest war games around Taiwan, carried out last week, included mock blockades of key ports and areas, and assaults of maritime and ground targets, Beijing said. In a report to the Legislative Yuan about preparations in case of