Audrey Tang: Pretty good, pretty good. Working from home today.

Audrey Tang: We’re currently at Alert Level 3, which means business continue as usual, movement is not restricted, but schools and entertainments are moved online. We’re at this level for a week now.

Audrey Tang: That’s right, the Alpha variant. The curve is pretty flat now, but because the new variant has a higher base R value and more damaging to especially elderly people, we decided to extend the Level 3 condition for a while. It’s not a lockdown. Level 4 would be a lockdown.

Audrey Tang: Yes, definitely. Thank you for looking into the exposure notification contact. We rolled out both the check-in system, 1922 SMS, and the COCOA-like application for Android and iOS, in very short time period, but they worked well. We sent exposure notification, it reached people and so on. The check-ins also got massive adoption, and the integrated contact tracing is in the works. We’re pretty good in the technological front.

Audrey Tang: A central appointment system. Is that optional? Say I’m a local government. I can use my own in parallel with the central government one, or is it mandatory? Meaning, it’s top down, everybody has to use it?

Audrey Tang: OK.

Audrey Tang: I see. It’s more like a reference implementation than anything else.

Audrey Tang: It’s open source, meaning that it’s already on GitHub, and development is in the open? OK. It’s already on GitHub.

Audrey Tang: I know. The dashboard was done like that.

Audrey Tang: OK.

Audrey Tang: I understand there’s already a Personal Information Protection Commission, the PPC in Japan, as the national authority for privacy protection.

Audrey Tang: Now that Privacy Act has been amended, does that mean that the role of the PPC changes? It’s somehow part or collaborated with the digital agency or is this still an dedicated agency but related to digital agency?

Audrey Tang: I see, it mentions the digital agency, but the commission is still there.

Audrey Tang: OK, because we’re having the same converation here. We think that the design you just mentioned is very reasonable.

Audrey Tang: Because the digital ministry needs to work on the development of new techniques, it’s like pushing speed to a car. To put a brake on the car, we think a dedicated unit is still important for the data protection authority. We talked about it, and we decided not to make it part of the function of digital ministry here but rather have them collaborate.

Audrey Tang: Congrats.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, of course. We had a discussion with the US digital service on this particular issue many years ago. The road map they used is called the SMEQA. I just paste it on the chat, or the subject matter expert qualification assessment.

Audrey Tang: The most important thing here is that there is a job analysis workshop so that instead of a self reported questionnaire or things like that it’s more like a private sector interview where the horizontal task forces and the vertical departments each get a chance, a round.

Audrey Tang: There’s two rounds of assessments get to work with the applicant to both make sure that there is a fit but also to make sure that there’s a common pool for qualification, so that when you form new ad hoc groups like for the vaccination, there’s reservation. It’s not a single department, it’s going to be crossed with departmental.

Audrey Tang: You can immediately draw from that pool across different sectors. In Taiwan in each ministry, I mentioned the participation officers. Each of them can be appointed as a secondment into a task force for a limited time.

Audrey Tang: Normally, they do their original job in their vertical silo within the department, but when a new task force comes, we can’t get ad hoc group going very quickly. That’s the design criteria for the process and is model loosely after the SMEQA.

Audrey Tang: There are international people also. Nowadays, we give them Gold Card, which allows open work permit for three years so they don’t have to work just for the government. They can work for their original teleworking companies in Silicon Valley or whatever, but they are physically in Taiwan.

Audrey Tang: At the moment, if you are a full time public servant, then of course, you have to have a nationality, but it’s a little bit different in Taiwan because if you are an expert, I can write you a recommendation and then you get your citizenship.

Audrey Tang: Immediately, like for real, permanently. I wrote a recommendation to an open source contributor, and they get promoted from Gold Card to citizenship quickly. Usually, it takes five years, or you have to abandon your original passport.

Audrey Tang: It’s called naturalization, but we made an exception here: If you contribute significantly in your expertise, and I’ll write a recommendation letter and then you get dual citizenship immediately without having to wait for five years.

Audrey Tang: When we designed that, we specifically said it requires each competent authority, meaning ministries – it requires a ministerial recommendation. I’m a minister at large, so my recommendation letter has to go to, say, the Ministry of Science and Technology or Ministry of Interior.

Audrey Tang: The two ministers are more likely to work with this position because well, service design is also design, and social technology is also technology. The Ministry of Science and Technology graciously relaxed its Gold Card criteria to foster startups and entrepreneurship.

Audrey Tang: Even our Gold Card website was built by such a open source contributor turned into citizen, so it’s not like any government website. I’ll just pass it to you. It’s very clean. The Taiwan Employment Gold Card office is now helped by the people who naturalize or got a Gold Card thanks to this relaxed criteria.

Audrey Tang: If you get a Gold Card, that’s a residence permit. It’s a work permit, residence permit, healthcare, all in one. It’s a four in one. People can get a Gold Card overseas. You don’t have to go to Taiwan to apply.

Audrey Tang: Once you got a Gold Card, you can visit Taiwan because you’re now a resident. All the resident are OK to return. Even though it’s your first visit, it’s conceptually a return trip. We never closed to Gold Card holders.

Audrey Tang: At the moment, we’re working with the Gold Card community, of course, which is 2,600 people. They are working on their own business, not directly with me, but we are on very good terms.

Audrey Tang: Usually, what happens is, for example, when we’re building this website in the National Development Council, there is a work for hire contract between the council and these young people, these Gold Card holders, for a limited time. Maybe one year as a term and so on.

Audrey Tang: They sign on to become consultants or contractors and so on for this particular mission, which is, I call it ad hoc task force group instead of a permanent position in the central government. We used to have two interns, and for the new residents certificates numbering another two. Maybe five or six people. Not a lot, but they connect to the wider community of Gold Card.

Audrey Tang: That’s right, that’s right. Leave no one behind.

Audrey Tang: Of course.

Audrey Tang: Yeah. Of course, like Kendo, Judo. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: The way.

Audrey Tang: Digido. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: [laughs] I think it’s a brilliant idea, right? It’s easier to remember than “digital competence” which is too long, right? We just call it Digido.

Audrey Tang: I see what you mean.

Audrey Tang: Everybody’s affected.

Audrey Tang: Yes.

Audrey Tang: They’re natural allies.

Audrey Tang: OK. That’s excellent. In Taiwan, we also note, for example, co-ops or credit unions, which are like banks but even more in the social sector, are very important because many digital transformation strategy target only corporations and not co ops or credit unions.

Audrey Tang: Actually, because co-ops and credit unions vote for their leadership, the leadership is much more interested, much more naturally aligned to help to spread the Digido to its members.

Audrey Tang: For example, in Japan, I believe people do a lot of solar panel energy generation through formation of new co ops. They’re interested in new technology and emerging technology. They’re not just old school people. They may be old, but they’re very innovating.

Audrey Tang: If they don’t stay, they may be voted out of their co op or credit union. That part we’re focusing on as well to make sure we don’t accidentally leave them behind when doing SME related strategies.

Audrey Tang: Oh, cool.

Audrey Tang: My international engagement is handled by our secondment from Foreign Service.

Audrey Tang: Well, then, of course. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: I mean by default, if it’s your invitation, by default we accept.

Audrey Tang: If you think me appearing in person will be better, of course, we can talk about it. Then, it matters whether I stay for all the way to the digital day or something. It’s for the Foreign Service to plan.

Audrey Tang: Yeah. That’s online. That’s online. We should think about something for me to do in person.

Audrey Tang: OK.

Audrey Tang: Yeah. Of course. I can also connect her with our office actual administrative contact, so that if she has very detailed regulation level of things to ask. She can also ask our equivalent of her, I guess, in my office.

Audrey Tang: Definitely. You have the contact already, right. He was the one doing the scheduling with your secretary. Feel free to book additional time. I’m always very happy to help.

Audrey Tang: Oh, wow.

Audrey Tang: I always say yes, [laughs] if it’s something I can be contributing.

Audrey Tang: Yes, I’m already committed.

Audrey Tang: OK. That’s excellent. I’m very happy to chat about that.

Audrey Tang: I think what we should do is to establish another biweekly, more frequent working level discussion between the person doing the hiring and our person also doing the preparatory things for our digital ministry too, because there’s now a preparatory office for our digital ministry, which will start a little bit later than yours. Ours is maybe January the 1st, but the office is already there, so we can have a more frequent sharing.

Audrey Tang: Sure. Yeah.

Audrey Tang: My international engagement is 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM Taipei time, which is 8:00 to 10:00 for you. It has an overlap with your business hour or it could be 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM Taipei time, which is 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM for your time.

Audrey Tang: I’m fine. I’m really available for this talk. I think it’s very important that we learn from each other’s lessons and also the concepts that Digido is a great concept. I’m going to use it after that. The Digido for the digital day. This is excellent.

Audrey Tang: OK, that’s excellent. The vaccination system we talked in the very beginning, I understand it’s currently hosted in the Ministry of Defense, right?

Audrey Tang: I see. You’re not replacing that system. You’re helping that system.

Audrey Tang: I see. OK.

Audrey Tang: OK. This is very clear. Thank you. Makes a lot of sense. Before our 1922 SMS check-in system, it used to be Taipei City develops its own. Kaohsiung City develops its own, and so on. Our work is just to connect them into a single QR standard. Everyone can still push the stickers or whatever, but they are interoperable.

Audrey Tang: Again, we are working on the interoperability mission. This is the one that leveraged the local municipality’s competence because they don’t feel that they get replaced. Rather, they feel they get augmented.

Audrey Tang: Many people use feature phone, which is why we designed — I just paste it to you — the check in system. You can also manually type the place code and SMS to 1922 for free because many people use a phone that doesn’t have a camera that’s good enough as a QR scanner. People have a phone but not necessarily a smartphone.

Audrey Tang: My phone runs KaiOS.

Audrey Tang: Yeah. They’re still selling it because it’s easier for the elderly to make communications. Sometimes it specifically runs Line or specifically runs WhatsApp, but it doesn’t support any other app. It’s not running Android or iOS meaning. These phones are popular because it’s less likely to go wrong. It’s the kind of device you give very young people, like children devices.

Audrey Tang: My numbers are from 2019, so it’s a little bit dated. Let’s see. Let’s see the results.

Audrey Tang: 91 percent, as of 2019, have used Internet connectivity. That’s not that bad. People who have downloaded any information tool relation app is 72 percent, meaning that there’s around 20 percent of people who doesn’t want to install a government related app.

Audrey Tang: Because their phone doesn’t support Android or iOS app store, or they are using Android phone, but they don’t know how to use the Google Play app store. Both are possible. Maybe 20 percent of people fall in that category.

Audrey Tang: Definitely.

Audrey Tang: Excellent. Bye. Live long and prosper.