IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2021 - 77

masks will be distributed to the origin with more
population or consumption for children.
Second, though people can see the real-time face
mask stock data, it is still required to purchase them
in person, usually in long lines. Many pharmacies
may not open at night or all the face masks have
already been sold out before many people such as
office workers and students are free from work. There
are even cases where multiple people monopolize a
certain store. These conflicts and criticism push the
government to develop an online platform to verify
identity, make reservations, and prepurchase face
masks. The whole process may take about a week,
but it makes sure a fair distribution among citizens.
Third stage
As stated above, there are two ways to purchase the
face masks before April in Taiwan. The first one is registration
through a computer or a mobile phone, then
make a reservation, and wait for pickup in the desired
store or pharmacy. The other one is the traditional way
of waiting in line in the designed places to purchase the
face mask. The government is actively communicating
with its citizens and thus the policies and technology
are always evolving. Though the back-order system
helps people with little time waiting in line, there are
still many people not much familiar with the computer
or smartphone. In the third stage, everyone can purchase
a certain amount of face masks without reservation
using a credit card, insurance card, ID card, or
whatever can identify yourself.
Open-source software for information
and contact tracing
People must perceive policies and strategies
before they can proactively contribute to them [16].
Transparency and communications from the government
help ease their concerns [17].
There is a great contribution from the tech community
in Taiwan in the fight against the epidemic.
At an early stage, there is a panic among people
for purchasing face mask. The convenience store
and pharmacy were surrounded by people if it is in
stock, which increases the possible contact and risk
of infection. The tech community, therefore, develops
the first application representing the stock of the
facemask. It is either a map application or a chatbot
that promotes everyone to submit the feedback of
the stock so that other people can reference when
they hang out to buy facemask.
September 2021
However, this version of the application is considered
not quite accurate, and there are still cases
when the application shows the store is in stock,
and people head out to it in vain. The government
heard people's voices and decided to share the realtime
face mask stock data with the public. Though
people can search the raw stock data through the
medical insurance portal, the tech community in
Taiwan makes full use of it by developing a series of
open-source software. These applications, ranging
from pharmacy business hours, to facemask stock
heatmap, integrated voice assistant, confirmed cases
dashboard to contact tracing, follow the open-source
specifications, and everyone can examine their
codes. The panic was soon released because people
have confidence in the supply of the face mask.
Other than the cellphone location or the Bluetooth
contact tracing system, the open-source version
of contact tracing is based upon the traveling
track data of those confirmed cases provided by the
government. The user will need to export the location
history from Google maps application and then
upload the timeline file. User will be given chance
to choose from the period he would like to be compared
with the database. Since the uploaded data
only include the location and time spent within the
location, we do not need to worry about the possible
privacy or sensitive data leaks. Again all the codes
are provided, everyone can check if this website
collects unnecessary identification data or transfer
the uploaded timeline data to another server or
third parties.
Conclusion
In this article, I pointed out three technological
approaches Taiwan used to combat this public health
crisis. What can we learn from the Taiwan experience?
Is the development of technology the only factor
that leads to successful digital governance?
My thought comes to that although technology
itself can be useful, without proper use it will become
pointless. Digital tools are not the main infrastructure
to combat the epidemic, but when combined
with other tools, they can reinforce the effectiveness
of other detection and prevention measures, thus
expands the government's governance capacity
[13]. The tracking system would not work if it lacks
collaborative efforts between the central government,
major companies, nongovernmental organizations,
and local government. The mask distribution
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IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2021

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