Dimensions and Legal Issues of E-Identity: Taiwan’s Perspectives
Chien-Liang Lee
Distinguished Research Professor & Director
Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

I. Dimensions of E-Identity

1. Identity and verification in a digital world: real identity or virtual identity/onlineidentity.
With the high degree of informatization of human society, the Internet has become an
essential medium for people to connect with each other in both the public domain andin the social field. In the public domain, many traditional administrative procedures
are improving with the development of informatization and electronification, such as
online applications or automatic decision-making. As for the situation in the private
field, the Internet has also become an important way for people to interact with eachother, such as the wide spreading use of social media. Various legal acts in thematerial world need to verify people’s identity; in the virtual world, it is also
necessary to develop a measure through which a natural person can be identified.
Therefore, relevant discussions about e-identity in the legal field have boomed inrecent years.
2. Information that may be used to identify a natural person (personal data) storeddigitally in ID card or mobile devices (e-ID).
Another legal issue related to E-Identity concerns the storage and access of personal
data. According to the current technology, states or private sectors can collect andsave personal files in a specific database or hardware facility, which leads to issues of
information security, data utilization, and data access rights. For example, does thelaw allow certain agencies to access personal files? How to access personal files (Forinstance, by using fingerprint access or ID card)? How can personal files be used?
Who has access to these personal files? Moreover, who should be responsible if
personal information is leaked due to a lack of management? These are all issues
related to e-ID in the future.

1II. State of Regulation

1. Verification of digital identity
Regarding the relevant regulation of e-ID, German law already has relatively sufficientregulations. For example, Paragraph 2, Article 3a of the Federal Administrative
Procedure Law and Article 126a of the Federal Civil Code have provisions on electronic
communication. In addition, Germany has established the Act on Identity Cards andElectronic Identification (PAuswG), which also regulates electronic identity cards.
Compared with Germany, Taiwan's regulations are still incomplete in public and private
fields.
2. The New e-ID plan in Taiwan
When the Covid-19 pandemic peaked in Taiwan on 19 March 2020, the Department ofHousehold Registration, Ministry of Interior announced the "Regulations for theNational-wide Replacement of National ID Cards" based on the "New e-ID
Replacement of National ID Cards Plan" revealed on May 2019. The new e-ID wasinitially slated for issuance in October 2020; however, this project was postponed dueto the delay in delivering related equipment and materials caused by the pandemic. It isdeserving to pay attention to whether the authority takes advantage of the people's
seeking behavior for safety during the epidemic to promote "comprehensive implementof digital footprint" and "digital surveillance by citizens." In 2021, civil organizations
and some jurisprudence expressed their strong concerns and at the same time applied
to the Administrative Court for a provisional injunction, requesting the Ministry of theInterior to stop the implementation of e-ID. After that, the Executive Yuan announced
that the New e-ID plan had been halted since January 2021 until various technical issues
have been resolved to clear up doubts about potential data abuse.

III. Legal challenges to e-ID

1. Legal challenges to e-ID policy in Taiwan
1) Should e-ID be mandatory? duty to live in a digital world vs. right to stay in theanalog age.
Even though Taiwan has not yet decided to restart the e-ID plan, the project's future
development is still foreseeable. There are several issues we should pay attention to.
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First, when promoting the replacement of e-ID, Taiwan is bound to face a value
choice similar to that of Germany: should everyone be forced to change their e-ID
cards? The Act on Identity Cards and Electronic Identification in Germany allows
people to choose between traditional paper ID cards or e-ID, thereby respecting theindividual's constitutionally guaranteed right to information self-determination.
However, according to the New e-ID replacement plan introduced by Taiwan's
Ministry of the Interior, a policy of compulsory replacement is adopted, whose
constitutionality should be further considered.
2) Should national ID be required only for specified and regulated purposes? mandatory
identity verification vs. voluntary proof of identity.
Can e-ID cards be used for specific purposes only? Or is it broadly applicable to alladministrative procedures and private transactions? In particular, Taiwan has
advocated the "e-government" policy in recent years, attempting to link the databasesof all administrative agencies with personal electronic ID cards, thereby simplifyingand facilitating administrative procedures. Does this measure have information
security concerns? Releveled issues should also be discussed in depth before being
fully implemented.
3) Should leaving and collecting digital footprints be left unregulated? How to prevent orcontrol surveillance state and surveillance capitalism?
In recent years, many companies have used the digital footprints left by individuals'
virtual activities, through the calculation of algorithms, as assets to judge personal
preferences and life patterns. This process is called personal profiling in informatics.
Personal profiling requires a lot of personal information, and if it is used by the publicsector, it will inevitably give rise to George Orwellian concerns about “totalsurveillance”; however, if it is used by private enterprises, it may lead to the“surveillance capitalism”. Therefore, how to use the digital footprint generated byadopting e-ID is also a tough challenge for legal control.
2. National security concerns in Taiwan
1) data security threat: suspicious links between manufacturers of e-ID hardware andsoftware systems and external hostile forces1Should the manufacturers and suppliers of e-ID cards be subject to national laws?

Paragraph 1, Article 2 of Anti-infiltration Act: external hostile forces refers “to a country, politicalentity or group that is at war with our country or confronting our country by force. The same applies tocountries, political entities or groups that advocate the non-peaceful means to endanger oursovereignty.”
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This issue involves the protection of personal information and national security. In
particular, some manufacturers of e-ID and archives, who have the opportunity toobtain personal information, are overseas companies. There may be concerns aboutinformation leakage. Considering Taiwan's special international relations, Taiwan
passed the Anti-Infiltration Bill in 2020 to prevent hostile foreign forces fromobtaining national security information about Taiwan through various means. Whether
this requirement should be incorporated into the strategy of regulating e-ID cards
deserves further consideration.
2) danger of exploitation from enemy: case of Afghanistan e-ID.
For instance, Afghanistan's identity card (called Tazkira) was digitized in 2018 andlinked with people's data, including ethnicity and religious belief, voting preferences,bank records, land and property ownership. It is not difficult to find out that those
databases containing sensitive information usually place vulnerable people in danger.
Those data have been used to target vulnerable people in the most frequent condition,and digitized, searchable databases amplify the risks of abuse of this data. Therefore, it
should be necessary to bring in the law explicitly dealing with the relevant issues since
it protects the country from the invasion of external hostile forces and guards the humanrights and public interests from digital violation.

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