IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2021 - 75

national insurance network, so when those individuals
visit hospitals or clinics, medical professionals can be
made aware of and better protect themselves.
Privacy and data concern
Though this system can be helpful to limit the input
cases of COVID-19, there have been some concerns
over possible human rights violations. Is this over-surveillance
on citizens? What will the government do
with my data? Well, the Taiwan government does provide
some commitment to coping with this issue [18].
According to the Personal Data Protection Act
2015 (PDPA) [4], legislation regarding the governing
of the collection, process, and use of personal
data, all the utilization of these personal data must
be carried out in an honest and good-faith manner
that respects the data subject's rights and interests,
does not exceed the necessary scope of the specific
purposes and has a legitimate and reasonable connection
with the purpose of the collection.
Although location data is not specified by the
PDPA as a form of personal data (such as names, date
of birth, identity document (ID) card numbers, fingerprints,
medical records, and phone numbers), it may
be deemed as " other information or data which may
be used to identify a natural person. " We can find similar
requirements of privacy laws from other countries
like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
So how does the Taiwan government protect these
individuals' privacy and data? From the report of Taiwan's
media [5], this collection, process, and use of
data are necessary for ensuring national security or
furthering the public interest. The government has
acknowledged that cellphone location data is also
protected by the PDPA. It argues, however, this use
is within the necessary scope of the government's
performance of its statutory duties to subject location
data to regulations and therefore telephone companies
are exempted from any liability related to that.
To comply with the PDPA, the location uploaded
through the carrier network is only combined with
the phone number, not including any sensitive information
such as address and name. Also, the CECC
cannot get each individual's sensitive information
directly; instead, there will be a heatmap presenting
the confirmed cases of different origins and number
of people quarantined. Only a few authorized personnel
can retrieve an individual's address when
they fail to stay at home.
Also, the government has announced that the
cellphone tracking system will be discontinued
permanently after the pandemic passes and all the
stored personal data will be deleted immediately.
Transparency and communications help ease
people's concerns and thus better motivate each
individual's efforts. According to a telephone poll
conducted in mid-February by the Taiwanese Public
Opinion Foundation, people on average gave the
government a score of 84 points out of 100 for its epidemic
response.
Comparison with Bluetooth contact tracing
The cellphone location tracking system is also
used later for contact tracing to eliminate possible
community transmission. Instead of storing everyone's
location history, the system analyzes and notify
those considered as close contact [6], [7].
When a patient is confirmed with COVID-19, the
outbreak investigation team of Taiwan Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and local
health authorities will try to restore the traveling
Figure 1. Open-source heatmap tool to check
the nearest stock of the face mask [25].
September 2021
Figure 2. Open-source contact tracing
tool based on the exported Google maps
location history [25].
75
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2021

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