APEC Telecommunications and Information Working Group

The 39th Meeting APEC Telecommunications and Information Working Group Regulatory and Policy Update Chinese Taipei April 2009

Universal Service Chinese Taipei set 7 goals for 2009 to promote Universal Service: CATV in Every Village; Mobile Phone in Every Village; Terrestrial TV in Every Village; Broadband in Every Tribe; Public Phone in Every Tribe; Broadband Network in Every school; and Telephone in Every Household. CATV: Chinese Taipei is promoting Universal Service of CATV for Every Village. Chinese Taipei established a CATV development fund, to subsidize development of CATV infrastructure in remote areas. The Fund not only helps service providers install cables, protect consumer’s rights for better CATV service, etc, but also facilitates development of the CATV industry, by offering financial assistance for restoration after natural disasters, training professionals, and research and development programs. In 2008, NCC announced and approved the construction plans submitted by seven service providers. Four of the seven had completed their plans in 2008, while the other three are expected to complete theirs by May 2009. In total, 22 villages of 12 townships benefit or will benefit from these plans. The goal CATV for Every Village is expected to be achieved some time in 2010. Meanwhile, in order to help improve the quality of CATV reception in Matsu, one of many small off-shore communities (pop. 10,000), NCC planned to improve poor reception in stages. The plan was carried out from July 2008 and realized in January 2009. In addition, a measurement program was carried out for the reception quality on most of the outlying islands and an improvement benchmark was established for effective monitoring of system quality and to ensure people’s rights to high quality CATV service.

Telecommunications: After the success of the “Broadband for Every Village” project in 2007, NCC further announced the project of “Broadband for Every Tribe” in 2008, to expand the broadband infrastructure to outlying islands and remote tribes in mountains. Three appointed Telecommunication service providers, Chunghwa Telecom (CHT), Taiwan Fixed Network Company (TFN) and Chong Tou CATV Company (CTTV), established broadband infrastructure in 50 tribes in 2008 with construction fees totaling NT$78 million. With reduction of the digital divide between urban and remote areas, such tribes are able to enjoy the benefits of broadband connection and

1 the subsequent increased opportunities in education, commerce, and development of cultural industries that are distinct to each tribe. According to the statistics provided by the Council of Indigenous Peoples, out of 730 tribes, approximately 160 do not have broadband service (not including those that were provided service in 2008). To allow for the most effective use of universal service funding and resources, Chinese Taipei is currently looking for a neutral institute to carry out a full-scale survey on the demands of broadband service in tribes, as well as relevant studies for the use of annual broadband establishment programs in the future. This plan is in alignment with aim of providing broadband service to all tribes in 2010.

Network Security for Children and Teenagers Regarding management of Internet content, asides from legislation, NCC encourages self-regulation of service providers and the participation of private sectors, such as non-profit organizations, for the cooperative supervision of content on the Internet. Relevant actions are expected to improve the network environment and general security standards for children and teenagers using the Internet. NCC is studying the possibility of revoking the term “network contents shall be categorized”, as specified in paragraph 1, Article 27 of the Children and Juvenile Welfare Act and replacing it with “establishment of content protection institutes,” “service providers required for self-regulation,” and “citizen participation” instead.

Progress of Legislation for Draft of the Regulation Governing SPAM Proposed by NCC, the “Draft of the Regulation Governing SPAM” consists of 22 articles, which stipulate regulations regarding the sending of messages, responsibilities of supervising agencies, permission of service providers to reject receiving or relaying messages under certain circumstances, estimated amounts of compensation, corresponding group lawsuit system, and the acquisition of information of SPAM senders. The latest draft was approved in February, and will be sent to the legislature for final review in the near future.

Public Access to Wireless Broadband Access Business The revision of Regulations on Wireless Broadband Access Services in February 2009 was made based on the following principles: (1) same service, same control: management remains the same regardless of differences in technologies; (2) protect rights of consumers: in addition to a broad range of new services that improve the quality of people’s lives, multimedia service providers are required to provide specific information of service charges as an effort to protect consumers’ rights; (3) relax regulations: to encourage new technologies and innovative services, a relaxed policy will be adopted for new mobile multimedia content application services. In January 2009, Tatung InfoComm Co was issued the first chartered license for wireless broadband access business - Penghu County. Initially, the focus will be the provision of wireless broadband access service and voice; other value-added services

2 will be provided in the future. Tatung is expected to begin service within six months from the day that the chartered license was granted.

Information and Communication Security Chinese Taipei is currently developing the Anti-Internet Hacker Detection and Information Security Reporting System. This system is designed to detect, analyze, and prevent Internet hacker attacks in a timely fashion. It reports back information security events, and provides timely statistics and analysis of these events in order to minimize the threats of hackers. Meanwhile, government agencies are asked to use qualified information and communication security equipment, aid the development of information and communication security industries, promote the concept of information and communication security to private institutes, and encourage promotion of the production of information and communication security equipment to international markets. Chinese Taipei is now planning the introduction of the Information Security Management System (ISMS) to the telecommunications service sector. To achieve the goal of Complete Information and Communication Security Protection, the National Information and Communication Security Taskforce (ICST) developed a series of programs. These programs are designed to achieve three primary goals: (1) build a complete information security protection system, (2) evaluate the response capability for information and communication security events, and (3) establish a sound information security environment. To achieve the same goals, the government established ICST Technical Service Center in March 2001. The above agencies cooperated and established the Information and Communication Security Response Team for the coordination of government’s protection capability and credible environment. Also, ICST founded Taiwan National Computer Emergency Response Team (TWNCERT) and Taiwan National Computer Emergency Response Team/Coordination Center (TWCERT) to highlight the seriousness of security threats, and to share the analysis with both government and private institutes. TWNCERT and TWCERT are both the official members of FIRST and APCERT. The conference of Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Teams (APCERT) 2009 was held in March in Kaohsiung of Chinese Taipei. The topic of the conference was protection against malware and the sharing of relevant knowledge. In addition, a workshop in which academic studies on information network security in Chinese Taipei and reports on international security trends by ISS X-Force were shared. Moreover, to improve awareness of information security, a series of Information Week events were held in December 2008. At the International Information Security Forum major network service providers from the US, Japan, EU, as well as Chinese Taipei were invited to share the experiences in issues of privacy protection. The Information Security Week was a huge success, and plans are in progress to organize similar events in 2009.

3 PKI/e-Authorization

Chinese Taipei is actively promoting PKI/e-Authentication technologies and services in e-government, e-business and international cooperation. Since 2006, four International PKI/e-Authentication Training Programs were held and enabled 84 attendees from government sectors to share experiences, which helps further promote the proliferation of PKI/e-Authentication to manage the security and safety of digital identities. Up until now, 88,760 business digital certificates have been issued by the government, with over 92 million G2B transactions and 7 million B2B transactions since 2006. Meanwhile, while 1.5 million citizen digital certificates have been issued, 8.5 million transactions and more than 1,548 service items of online e-government applications have been created to serve the public.

Internet Crime Chinese Taipei has been paying attention to the Internet Crime issue for a considerably long time, and has been actively seeking international cooperation with other organizations for improving the effectiveness of investigation across several disciplines. In 2003 Chinese Taipei revised relevant criminal codes to stipulate criminal behavior associated with a computer/network. Despite more than 5 years of amendments and implementation of these laws, there have been many disputes on the applicability of relevant acts. Furthermore, there are no stipulations in current legal regulations regarding collection of digital evidence, security procedures and relevant evidence principles. As a result, Chinese Taipei has entrusted the studies on the issues of current legal regulations and their practical applications to several academically reputable scholars. The result of these studies will be referred to for the amendment of relevant laws.

Disaster Prevention and Mitigation In Chinese Taipei, National Applied Research Laboratories offers assistance to promote the integration of existing laboratory resources in support of academic research encompassing disaster prevention and environmental based researches. From 2009 to 2012, larger cross-field integrative projects will be promoted to establish the following six platforms: Observatory, Disaster Risk Reduction & Emergency Preparedness, Core Facilities for Environment and Disaster Prevention & Response, Environmental Technology R&D, Development Platform of Technology on Disaster Risk Reduction, and Application Platform for Advanced R&D on Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction, In 2009, National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction (NCDR) shall engage in the co-promotion of several of the aforementioned platforms. The Disaster Risk Reduction & Emergency Preparedness encompasses the development of accurate assessment techniques to reduce the time required for the

4 central government to analyze disasters and determine responses. Disaster investigation mechanisms and information application techniques will be promoted to rapidly complete disaster assessment reports and set up information service platform of disaster prevention and response, and integrate the nationwide disaster prevention and response database. The Development Platform of Technology on Disaster Risk Reduction combines various weather and seismic historical data, prediction and simulations. The platform improves the accuracy of early alarm analysis, allows for greater efficiency of central government, and improves the disaster-resilient capabilities in response to the drastic global climatic changes and the disasters triggered.

The Application Platform for Advanced R&D on Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction is a high-resolution 3D digital platform that displays the geographic information of Chinese Taipei.