NT$500 Compensation Shakes Up Mobile App Industry

Photography / Tsai Ming-hsiu

Recently, a citizen well-versed in the Personal Data Protection Act skillfully invoked Article 28, Paragraph 3 of the Act to claim NT$500 in damages from a mobile app developer. Constrained by the plaintiff's claimed amount, the Taipei District Court used "small claims procedure"—a format incapable of deeply examining controversial legal issues—to handle a difficult question: "How can mobile app developers utilize information?" and "To what extent should the Personal Data Protection Act protect individual rights?" Among these, the question of whether "knowing whether a specific number belongs to a particular telecommunications operator thereby makes the holder of that number 'sufficiently identifiable' to cause an infringement of their privacy" was answered by the Taipei District Court through the small claims procedure, which deeply concerns and alarms the author.

After all, when I obtain a phone number and use a convenient mobile app to find out which telecommunications operator it belongs to so I can further decide which SIM card to use for a call-back, this ought to be a fundamental right of a mobile phone user. After all, call rates differ significantly between on-net and off-net calls. Just what kind of civic sentiment makes someone feel their privacy has been so violated that they intentionally use a "litigation procedure where the court cannot conduct a detailed investigation" to attack a software developer?

According to Legislative Reasoning Item 2 for Article 436-8 of the Code of Civil Procedure: "To enable citizens to resolve minor monetary claims arising from daily life through a simple, prompt, and economical litigation procedure, thereby enhancing the quality of national life, the small claims procedure is hereby added." Simply put, when both parties dispute relatively minor interests or rights, legislators intend for courts to resolve disputes through relatively simple procedures. This is inherently very reasonable, but there may be exceptions.

Regarding this NT$500 compensation case, the author believes that courts should be particularly cautious when accepting small claims cases to determine whether the legal issues involved are highly complex and whether the judgment results will affect the operational status of a specific industry. They should exercise their authority to switch to a more cautious litigation procedure, preventing the good intentions of the small claims procedure from being abused.

The legal controversy in this case has profoundly affected the survival and development of our country's mobile app industry. The higher court should carefully consider whether the original judgment's interpretation of the Personal Data Protection Act Article 2 Review clearly contradicts the intent of Item 3 of the legislative reasoning of that article, accept the appeal of this case, and further re-examine the boundaries of the application of the Personal Data Protection Act.