Joint Statement | Anticipatory Preventive Injunction Suit Regarding the eID Awaiting Judgment: Hoping the Court Acts as a Democratic Defense Line for Taiwan's Identification System

The Taipei High Administrative Court announced on April 13, 2023, that judgment on this case will be rendered on May 11.

Taiwan's ID card policies have repeatedly featured designs characterized by "forced digitization" and "legislation without prior enactment." Since the National ID card policy in 1998, although recent New eID policies have improved somewhat compared to before, they still inherit the nature of "compulsion" and the decision-making model of "policy first, legal and legislative protection vacuum." In 2020, the government completed the procurement of eID equipment, planning a comprehensive replacement without enacting laws to regulate digital footprints and restrictions on the collection and use of personal identification data. If individuals are unwilling to hold a chip-based ID card, they will face dilemmas such as being unable to vote or take the driver's license test after the government declares "old IDs invalid." In August of the same year, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and the Judicial Reform Foundation initiated an anticipatory preventive injunction suit for this reason.

This lawsuit pursues two major objectives: requesting the Ministry of the Interior not to issue an announcement invalidating old ID cards, and confirming that Taiwanese citizens have the right to choose an ID card that "does not store or link personal information in an electronic or digital format." Four months after the lawsuit was filed in 2020, local governments such as Hsinchu City successively withdrew from the pilot program, refusing to treat the public as policy guinea pigs. Subsequently, the Executive Yuan announced in 2021 the suspension of the eID policy and initiated legislative and regulatory amendment work. The lawsuit's objective to "prohibit announcing the invalidation of old ID cards" is no longer an urgent demand due to the current absence of a replacement schedule. However, in reality, neither the Executive Yuan nor the Ministry of the Interior has promised to retain a chip-free option, nor have they repealed the relevant plans; thus, this lawsuit still holds certain significance for Taiwan's informational privacy.

The original intent of digital tool inclusiveness is to provide individuals with choices to adopt appropriate methods (such as independently obtaining a Citizen Digital Certificate) to respect the adequate convenience of a diverse society. Storing and transmitting personal data in digital format merely enhances the convenience of efficiency, failing to consider individual usage context differences and administrative risks arising from insufficient regulations. An efficiency-driven perspective of convenience will also elevate the threat of citizens' data being abused. Taiwan's existing lifelong one-person-one-number ID number lacks collection and usage restrictions, leading to excessive and indiscriminate collection during daily shopping. Central government data linked and aggregated via ID numbers adds to profiling issues and has suffered multiple large-scale breaches. Against this background, the facial photograph files in the eID policy design will also be easily collected and used. Because under the premise of mandatory replacement, individuals have no other choice but to hold a digital ID card, and they bear the risks themselves.

Identity policies should be improved by taking existing problems into consideration and are not suitable for blindly copying the designs of individual countries. Estonia's completely digitized example is built upon a special environment and may not necessarily suit Taiwan. We have also witnessed the immense threats exposed in Afghanistan after being taken over by the Taliban government—where the national electronic identity system and digital identity systems established by international agencies locally allowed an authoritarian regime to more efficiently target unwelcome groups and implement tighter surveillance. We believe that with the chip-based ID card policy currently suspended, through civil society advocacy and the dialectic of this lawsuit, policy decision-makers and related industries should not excessively cling to the vision of ID card digitization while ignoring the interests of informational privacy protection. We also look forward to more agencies jointly participating in the improvement of the national identification system. Furthermore, we hope the court will render a proactive judgment, drawing the first democratic defense line for Taiwan's informational privacy and identification system.

Joint Statement: Taiwan Association For Human Rights, Open Culture Foundation, Judicial Reform Foundation

Press Contact: Taiwan Association For Human Rights Digital Rights Specialist Chou Kuan-ju