Kimberly Rogovin: Should we go around and do quick introductions first?

Audrey Tang: Sure.

Facilitator: Just name and organization? Val?

Valery Alzaga: Valery Alzaga. I am the deputy director of Global Labor Justice, International Labor Rights Forum.

Nofian Kubalang: I’m Nofian Kubalang.

Translator: He’s Nofian Kubalang. He’s the leader of Pingtung regional communities and of FOSPI in Donggang. FOSPI is Indonesian seafarers gathering forum in Donggang, which has around 2,300 members. Under FOSPI leadership, there are 12 regional communities. These two are the leader of two regional communities.

Audrey Tang: Welcome.

Facilitator: Jonathan, you want to introduce yourself?

Audrey Tang: Yes.

Jonathan Parhusip: My name is Jonathan. I’m still a PhD student in National Yang Min Chiao Tung University. I’m working as a consultant for this project, WiFi campaign.

Translator: His name is Sharoni. He’s the leader of PPI Pemalang communities, also under FOSPI.

Audrey Tang: Welcome.

Priscilla: Hello, my name is Priscilla. I’m a Master’s student from 中山大學. Also, I’m a project assistant for Stella Maris Kaohsiung.

Father Hendrikus Arianto Ukat: My name is Father Ari. I’m a Scalabrinian priest. I’m working as the project coordinator in migrant workers concerns located here in St. Christopher Church in Taipei.

Audrey Tang: Welcome.

Father Ansensius Guntur: Hello, Audrey. I’m Father Ansensius Guntur, but people call me Father Yance. I am working in Stella Maris, consumers director. Nice to meet you.

Audrey Tang: Welcome.

Facilitator: I’m Kim Rogovin, senior seafood campaign coordinator at GLJ-ILRF. I’m normally based in Thailand, but coming over to Taiwan more often these days.

Audrey Tang: Excellent. I’m Audrey Tang, Taiwan’s digital minister for quite some time now, since 2016. Recently, last August, we founded the Ministry of Digital Affairs — moda — which expanded a little bit in scope that now covers universal service of broadband. I believe that is the part of my portfolio that overlaps with your concerns. Let’s get started.

Facilitator: That’s great. We’re very excited to be here today. Thank you so much for your time. We’ve prepared some comments for you. Would you like to say anything first?

Audrey Tang: No.

Facilitator: We should go ahead?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, sure.

Facilitator: Valery will kick us off.

Valery Alzaga: First of all, thank you, Minister Tang, Audrey, and colleagues, for hosting us today at your office. We believe the right to safe digital communication to be crucial for our campaign. We think that this ministry is quite important because of it.

Valery Alzaga: As a deputy, I just want to explain a little bit who we are, Global Labor Justice – International Labor Rights Forum. We work out of DC. We’re a global labor rights organization.

Valery Alzaga: Our work mainly is to hold global corporations accountable, along value chains, [laughs] for labor rights violations in the supply chains, but also to advance policies and law to protect migrant workers’ decent work right.

Valery Alzaga: Also the right to freedom of association, which is the right to form unions without retaliation, surveillance, and also for the right to collectively bargain and have a voice in the industry and society, really.

Audrey Tang: It should be as easy to start a labor union as for a startup company.

Valery Alzaga: That’s right. As you will hear, it’s not so easy. It’s not so easy because of isolation and also because there is retaliation when forming and exercising rights at the work level.

Valery Alzaga: We work globally at the intersection of migrant rights, gender rights, and really vulnerable workers at the bottom of value chains. We, in particular, try to be quite intersectional. Most of our work really either involves, like I said, gender or caste or, in the case of migrant workers, migrant status and everything that goes with being vulnerable, if you will.

Valery Alzaga: We work mainly in industries like cotton, agriculture, and fishing. This is around the world. Our organization is everywhere.

Valery Alzaga: One of the things is that we’re working with a lot of allies in this campaign and in general. The idea here really is to bring international standards to companies and to push the multinationals at the European and US level because that’s the end users. At the end, we are the ones that buy these products. We are just as responsible for the conditions along the value chain.

Valery Alzaga: One of the things that is important is that we believe that exploitation of workers really makes unfair competition for those companies that are taking advantage.

Valery Alzaga: You will hear there are vessel owners that are already providing digital communications for their workers and are doing the right thing, but there are other ones that might be actually not in support of that. That creates costs on the ones that are doing the right thing. We are also supportive of an industry that is sustainable and fair in competition.

Valery Alzaga: That’s an important part, especially of businesses that are ethical, but maybe small or middle enterprises. We want to make sure that they have the resources and can work with us as an industry.

Valery Alzaga: We want to collaborate with industry. We want to invite them to sit down and figure out how do we get this done in a way that is phase by phase, but it’s surely going to help workers and all of us consumers make sure that this is happening with basic rights.

Valery Alzaga: We also want to normalize the fact that workers have the right to organize, have the right to have a voice, and that’s not necessarily happening in this industry yet, but we will make it there.

Valery Alzaga: We also coordinate the seafood work in group. It’s a global coalition of human rights, labor rights, and environmental rights, working at addressing labor abuses, and actually also sustainability issues in the industry itself. We focus in Thailand, Taiwan, and other countries in East and Southeast Asia. Hopefully, we’ll be expanding that, our work, in the future.

Valery Alzaga: Like I said, we don’t lead campaigns. We collaborate and partner very equally with the organizations of workers. It’s their priorities that we then help amplify to address issues of exploitation, dispossession, and unethical working conditions.

Valery Alzaga: One of the things that we were really excited about is that you talk about radical…

Audrey Tang: Transparency.

Valery Alzaga: Transparency.

Audrey Tang: And accountability.

Valery Alzaga: Yes. In some ways, you’re really so pro-democratic. Taiwan, in this region, it is really exceptional that workers have the right to form unions and organize with us and the rest of the Asian world, I’d say. That’s not optimal practice. We already think that Taiwan is doing the right thing. The problem is that having a right doesn’t mean being able to exercise that right.

Audrey Tang: It may not be the norm. [laughs]

Valery Alzaga: Right, and just because we have the right sometimes, it doesn’t mean that we have the technical infrastructure to practice it, and this is how then the digital rights and finding a way to make this affordable is what we’re looking for here.

Valery Alzaga: This is a huge industry. We’re talking about 20,000 workers and a thousand vessels. Taiwan really being one of the top industries in the world. The fact that you might do the right thing, this actually sets the tone for a regional standard that we will like to very much as a global organization continue to work on.

Valery Alzaga: We just think Taiwan is to push further. That’s it. You know what I mean? How do we make sure that workers know their rights, but the power to exercise it?

Audrey Tang: Exactly.

Valery Alzaga: This is why we’re here. I’m not going to talk anymore. I’m going to actually let the protagonists of this struggle really be the ones because that’s our job is to make sure that these organizations are at the forefront of this.

Audrey Tang: Of course.

Valery Alzaga: We’re just here to support them as global labor justice in International Labor Rights Forum, so that’s us. I will pass it now to Nofian Kubalang, who are leading us really in this campaign. Thank you.

Translator: His name is Nofian Kubalang, worker leader under FOSPI located in Donggang.

Translator: He has been working on Taiwan fishing vessel for 15 years, so 5 years on local fishing or domestic fishing and 10 years in longline fishing.

Translator: I want to share my own experience, not just the story, but my own experience years ago why WiFi is important for us, because communication is influencing our life. Not just my own life, but my whole family’s life.

Translator: When we are working on the high seas in the fishing ground, sometimes we work there for a year, sometimes more than a year, and without communication with our families, it’s affecting our life.

Translator: My own experience, I divorce with my wife because we are not able to communicate properly for almost more than two years.

Translator: We are requesting government attention our WiFi, reducing our stress when we’re on the fishing ground on the high seas, but also assisting us to stay connected with our families back home.

Translator: This is what I want to share here, because it’s happening to me.

Translator: Thank you.

Translator: My name is Sharoni from PPI Pemalang Community, also under FOSPI leadership. I want to share my own experience.

Translator: I have a quite long experience since 2001, working on Taiwan-flag fishing vessels in different countries. Sometimes, the vessels are in Mauritius, in Fiji, or other countries.

Translator: One of the most significant thing that affect our families are the information. We are not able to get information how is our families doing at home, how the families manage our salaries. Are they able to get proper food, or are the agencies paying our salaries on time?

Translator: We are not able to oversee all of these when we are on the high seas because the issue of communication and information.

Translator: When we are going abroad to war, going overseas to war, we are expecting to have a better life for us and for our families. Oftentimes, when we are not able to communicate with our families, we cannot discuss of what is happening, or what do they need, or how is our salary being used. Then, the conflicts arise and it destroy our family.

Translator: When we are working on the high seas, usually, the employer gave us two days or three days off in a month. We want these two days or three days for us to be able to use our communication to stay connected to our families, to reduce our stress, and also to resolve some conflicts that may arise in our families.

Translator: We are hoping the government could push a revolution that requires all the fishing vessels to have WiFi that allow us to stay connected with our families.

Translator: Thank you.

Father Ansensius Guntur: I am Father Yance from Stella Maris Kaohsiung. Thank you, Audrey, for giving us this opportunity to have a dialog with you. Most probably, you will ask, “What do you do in Kaohsiung?” Every week, we have a regular visit to the fishing ports and to meet the fishers.

Father Ansensius Guntur: Just last year, we have reached out to 5,308 fishers. Talk with them, listening to them, verify their living conditions. There’s some issues that we indicate, like unpaid salaries, repatriation, the issues of repatriation, bad treatments, something like that. We try to understand why these things happen.

Father Ansensius Guntur: I believe that these things happen because there is lack of communication with fishers with their people on the ground. For example, I encountered a case, very bad case where some fishers are not paid for 14 months. When they arrive on the port, they were surprised that their salaries were not yet paid. They could not know this because there was no means of communication.

Audrey Tang: Not even short text message?

Father Ansensius Guntur: No. For 14 months, for fishers, if they work for long working hours, they don’t complain much, but if their salaries are not paid, it is really bad because they come here to support their families. When they’re not paid like that, it means they feel really bad. Because of that, I discovered that it’s very important to have WiFi on board.

Father Ansensius Guntur: Of course, now, with the new revision of the regulations in Taiwan, they install CCTV. They can monitor the movements. They can monitor how much hours you’re working on the fishing vessels, but they cannot monitor even if their salaries are paid or not.

Audrey Tang: Exactly.

Father Ansensius Guntur: Do you get my point?

Audrey Tang: Yes.

Father Ansensius Guntur: When you have the WiFi, certainly they can connect with their families. They can also check whether their salaries are transferred already or not. It is one of the reasons why I really support this campaign.

Father Ansensius Guntur: I have very nice experience with the fishers when they were in Oakland Island. They send me pictures from the fishing ground. They said, “Father, finally, we have WiFi.” I am very happy that some of the fishing vessels have already WiFi on board. They have the access to the vessels, but it is not yet the policy.

Father Ansensius Guntur: Our dream, it is possible this becomes policy so that all the Taiwanese fishing vessels can have the WiFi. I believe if there is WiFi on board, it can help the fishers to have their mental health well because they can connect with their families, they can learn what is happening outside of the fishing ground.

Father Ansensius Guntur: Then, for the companies, I guess it is also good because fishers never post something that is bad on a fishing vessel, especially from Indonesia.

Father Ansensius Guntur: They will post something like, “Oh, we are really happy in the fishing grounds.” It is good opportunity for Taiwan to promote that working in Taiwan in fishing vessel is very good because they have this access over WiFi. In that case, there is transparency that everybody is open because I believe that if you are not hiding something bad, you will be transparent.

Audrey Tang: Of course.

Male Participant: It can be done when you have WiFi, so Audrey, I really need your support. I talk to you because I am in the ground. I understand the needs of the fishers. I don’t have any interests or whatever, but this is their voice. They wish to have the possibility to connect with their families.

Audrey Tang: Thank you.

Facilitator: Father Ari?

Father Ari: I’m Father Ari, and I’m working here in MWCD, also doing Stella Maris services in Taipei. If Father Yance is in the south, then I’m doing it in the north, exactly the same thing. We do visits and also accommodate them, specially when they need things. When there is unpaid salaries, then we will help them to get that. Also, we might encounter with the fishers.

Father Ari: I support this program because it’s important. The location, here in Taipei, our ports are all always outside of Taipei, located far away, and the farther place is like 90 kilometers, so it’s take two to three hours drives back and forth. Mostly fishers, they live in the remote places because the ports are not close to the city.

Father Ari: Perhaps we have an idea about their lives when during the time, in early 2020 when COVID started in Taiwan, we were not allowed to go out. That’ll give us sort of idea of how to be a fisher because most of them, they stay on their boats, living there. They don’t have a place where they can stay houses, but they stay on their boat.

Father Ari: They go to work, coming back, stay on their boat, so their life is like that. Not so many people visit them, and they don’t have time to come to the cities, so this communication for them really important.

Father Ari: Talking to them…I encounter many of them, some get problems, they share. It’s not inclusive or exclusive for them, but it’s most of them because their relationships are damaged because they have not a good communication with their spouses.

Father Ari: It’s difficult for them, the situation that they’re facing. Also, at the same time, because of lack of communication, they cannot get help when they need them.

Father Ari: That’s why by doing this, you’re really helping them to connect with their families but also to ask for help when they need. That’s why I think it is really important to do so. I’m glad really to be part of them because I’m from Indonesia, and most workers here are Indonesians.

Father Ari: It’s a little bit different when they work with people who are coming from their place. It’s like more we are closer, so they can tell you things that perhaps they cannot say to people from other branches. I feel the need that they should get this to allow them to really communicate with their families. Thank you.

Audrey Tang: Thank you.

Kimberly Rogovin: I guess to wrap up, one of the reasons why our organization started to focus on Taiwan in the first place is because of the seriousness of the abuses that were being reported in the media and by other NGOs.

Kimberly Rogovin: That ranges from some of the labor rights violations that they’ve already talked about, unpaid wages and contract issues to termination of contract and deportation back to their home countries. Also, in the media, you’ve probably seen cases of forced labor, of human trafficking, of disappearances of workers, and very serious abuses.

Kimberly Rogovin: That is why we came here and wanted to start collaborating with unions and offer our support. That is why we are advocating for WiFi because we believe that it will help to address these labor and human rights abuses and really help build the power of workers, which is what is needed.

Kimberly Rogovin: There’s a huge power imbalance between the industry and the Indonesian migrant crew. We’re hoping to, through WiFi and through expansion of freedom of association rights and strengthening of FOSPI in other groups, that it will decrease this power imbalance and help address these abuses.

Kimberly Rogovin: As Val mentioned, the fact that Taiwan has already given migrant workers the right to form unions. South Korea is the only other country in the region that has afforded migrant workers that right, so it’s a really good starting point, but without WiFi…

Audrey Tang: Without communication, there is no union.

Kimberly Rogovin: Without communication, it completely hinders that right. In our experience, when workers organize, there will be pushback by the industry, and there will be pushback by employers who don’t want to see that power-building of workers. We need to have a safe space for communication.

Kimberly Rogovin: A safe and encrypted space for workers to be able to communicate, one that is free from surveillance, in order to protect their rights to freedom of association. That is why we believe your ministry is so important because what we hope is that our campaign drives are inclusive, including by foreign migrant workers.

Kimberly Rogovin: We’re seeking the support of more digital rights organizations for our campaign. We’re already working with one group called Access Now.

Audrey Tang: I also signed their #WhyID pledge.

Kimberly Rogovin: I’m sure you know them. We’d really like to take guidance from you about how to strengthen digital rights for migrant workers in Taiwan and explore how they can have safe or encrypted WiFi access at sea. We are not the experts on this tech.

Kimberly Rogovin: We’re also thinking through how to provide training for migrant fishers so that when they do have access to WiFi, they use it in a safe and secure way, and they don’t put themselves at risk by using it in dangerous ways.

Kimberly Rogovin: We’ve been meeting with many stakeholders from the government and the industry, the employers as well, to discuss our main ask for the campaign, which is that the Taiwanese government require that all distant water fishing vessels, the ones that are at sea for up to 10 months or longer, have accessible and secure WiFi for the migrant crew.

Kimberly Rogovin: The main response so far is that, in principle, they agree that migrant workers should have WiFi in their vessels.

Audrey Tang: They are going to subsidize.

Kimberly Rogovin: There’s not enough money to support it. The Fisheries Agency is providing 10 percent subsidies for the whole fleet, so that’s 110 of the 1,100 fishing vessels. We’re saying that’s not enough, and it definitely needs to go further than that.

Kimberly Rogovin: We also know that some vessels are already providing WiFi, even some of the smaller vessels are already providing WiFi. We talked so far to one satellite WiFi company called Samsung here, and they told us about the costs. They’re not as high as we as we thought.

Audrey Tang: Because there’s competition now.

Kimberly Rogovin: Because there’s competition now. Exactly. We’re also looking to explore that more. What are the real costs? Our campaign so far, we have a lot of good supporters, including in Taiwan, the Kaohsiung City Industry Federation of Trade Unions, Taiwan Labor Front, and some of the commissioners within NHRC.

Kimberly Rogovin: NHRC, the National Human Rights Commission, has not yet endorsed the campaign as a whole, but some of the individual commissioners. We’re definitely seeing more supporters. For you…

Audrey Tang: They are the right people.

Female Participant: …they are the right people.

Audrey Tang: Our very good friends.

Kimberly Rogovin: That’s good to know. For your ministry, mainly, we’re asking, can you consider to publicly support this campaign? We have an allies pledge that’s available in all of our languages, and if you would be willing to sign that.

Kimberly Rogovin: In particular, to collaborate with us to explore digital rights for migrant fishers, and what does secure and encrypted WiFi access look like on fishing vessels? Is this even possible? How do we think this through?

Kimberly Rogovin: Also, about the costs of WiFi and pinning that down so that when we have that pushback from the industry that it’s too expensive, we can have a very clear response that it is now becoming affordable. There is more competition.

Kimberly Rogovin: Also, yes, to help us share the campaign with other policy makers that you think would be allies. If we can even go as far as cosponsoring the bill [laughs] in this area, then that’s something as well that we would love your support on.

Kimberly Rogovin: Thanks for listening to our presentation from our delegation. We’d love to hear from you. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: If you’re not in a rush to speak…

Female Participant: We’re not in a rush. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: Neither am I.

Audrey Tang: To your requests, I’ve not signed any pledge since the founding of the Ministry of Digital Affairs, so it would be quite symbolic if this is the first pledge that I sign.

Audrey Tang: Usually, we will have to consult our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Treaties, in particular, for the international effects and repercussions of it. Because this is Lunar New Year, I don’t have any staff except these two…

Audrey Tang: I guess I can consult my bodyguard…

Female Participant: She’s far away from you.

Audrey Tang: Yesterday, she told me that she supports your campaign, that’s one vote for. She also added that she doesn’t represent the police forces or the Ministry of Interior.

Audrey Tang: Because of this, we’ll have to begin the discussion only after the Lunar New Year, which is end of this month, and I will get back to you about the pledge.

Audrey Tang: I want to ask a clarifying question. When you said that the FA, the Fisheries Agency, have allocated fund, is that a fixed fund so that when there’s more competition and the cost lowers by, for example, if it lowers to a 10 percent of what it was before, does it mean that they will be then covering everyone? Or, did they just say these many vessels?

Female Participant: I think it’s the latter. It’s 10 percent of the fleet. I think they have committed to subsidize WiFi for 10 percent of the fleet. There’s approximately 1,100 Taiwanese-flagged vessels and an additional 250 flag of convenience, these other kind of vessels. 10 percent of that would be 110 fishing vessels.

Audrey Tang: They also, from their press release, said that it is calculated based on a 8,000 NT dollars per month basis. When they say that, it usually means that there is already a fixed fund allocated for this purpose so that if the monthly communication fee lowers to, say, 800 instead of 8,000, they will be able to cover everyone.

Audrey Tang: Usually, when they put a dollar figure on it, it means that there’s a allocated budget, but it’s not very clear from the press release.

Female Participant: That’s a good point. Do you have any sense of that?

Female Participant: I’m not sure we should ask them.

Audrey Tang: That’s a important clarifying question, because if that is the case, then our job becomes much easier, because we are in charge of allocating the spectrums and promoting competition, especially new entrants, to use radio frequency for fixed satellite services.

Audrey Tang: As many of you know, I just returned from Lithuania, and they already have access to the Starlink network. The Starlink network specializes to the moving vehicles, including airplanes and vehicles on the sea. It’s not just Starlink, but also other what we call non-geostationary satellite providers are considering entering the Taiwanese market.

Audrey Tang: In fact, last month, we’ve received two new applications. The more competition there is, the lower the cost will be. If the cost goes low enough, then without any new budget allocation by the FA, you will get your goal.

Female Participant: It is covered.

Audrey Tang: [laughs] Right. That’s one very concrete way we can help on this. Any thoughts?

Female Participant: Yeah. Do you think there are particular satellite providers that we should be communicating with and telling them about our campaign as well?

Audrey Tang: If you search for non-geostationary satellites, NGSO, you’ll find currently running providers. I also saw that the FA is subsidizing, I think it’s 300,000 NT dollars per vehicle to purchase, I presume, satellite communications service.

Audrey Tang: Is it any specific vendor, or is that also subject for competition, is what I’m trying to say? A Starlink receiver is certainly not [laughs] that expensive.

Female Participant: Exactly. What you are suggesting is if there’s more competition, we can lower the cost, and then we can still work with the pool of money that the FA is offering.

Audrey Tang: Yes.

Female Participant: We also understand that not all vessels are equal. Some vessel owners and companies might have more profit and are able to make those discretionary decisions, while other companies are not that profitable, and those are the ones that need the subsidies.

Female Participant: An analysis of that so we can be logical and practical in the solutions, we’re very open to that.

Audrey Tang: That’s excellent.

Female Participant: I think the question is, is this a political will question because of what it means for workers to have a voice, or is it actually caustic? Can we solve the practical pieces together?

Audrey Tang: I think it’s just practical question.

Female Participant: So in a stakeholder conversation where we can really troubleshoot that. We would love that to be the case. There are other solutions. We just understand right now that having video, having the ability to communicate live for workers, not only with their families and children.

Female Participant: One thing that is very important to raise here is that we’re not just talking about spouses. We’re talking about children and not having parents, but also for workers to be able to organize with each other and speak to their organizations, to Stella Maris and other advocates.

Female Participant: For us, we’re very open to that to figuring it out, to sitting down and negotiating and discussing what are the solutions.

Female Participant: I think to have a tiered pricing system or tiered subsidy system where the smaller vessels are, of course, paying less for getting higher subsidies, and the larger vessels which can definitely afford this already would be getting less.

Female Participant: To be fair, we also need to outreach to the end users. Like we said, what is it that they can contribute as well, right?

Audrey Tang: Mm-hmm.

Female Participant: Especially the multinational team in global north countries that are also part of our value chain. We’re not just putting the responsibility on Taiwan. I think we globally also need to make sure that this is a conversation all the way up.

Female Participant: These questions are really important to us, and we’re really at the beginning. We haven’t even gone public already. We’re doing consultations to understand what does this campaign look like? How do we tone it in a way that is very open to logistical and practical solutions? That’s what we want.

Audrey Tang: I see.

Female Participant: It’s not an attack on the industry. This is an invitation to do the right thing with us.

Audrey Tang: Of course. I think the Fisheries Agency and the Human Rights Commission in the Control Yuan, they all endorsed basically the C188 conventions, which includes satellites or radio communications. I don’t think this is, at this point, a political will thing, because everybody agreed that this is what should happen.

Audrey Tang: What we’re now working on is how to fast-track its happening. Instead of just to the 10 percent or the 10 percent-plus already wealthy companies [laughs], we want to be universal as much as possible, which brings me to my second point.

Audrey Tang: We are also in charge of universal service in Taiwan. As part of the Telecommunications Act, we’re responsible to provide fair essential communication to all national citizens. That’s the law.

Audrey Tang: I am sorry for that.

Audrey Tang: That’s the law… We inherited the law. [laughs] Just as the law indicated, there are certain essential services, including medical ones, that are not actually…You can’t tell a difference or discriminate between a national and a non-national when it comes to essential medical services.

Audrey Tang: In fact, our entire system of universal health services, the single-payer universal health, is founded upon the fact that you may not have a national identity card. You have a single-payer health card. That is the basis of the Taiwanese universal health system, which is also enshrined in the constitutional amendments.

Audrey Tang: During the pandemic, I was in charge of designing the computer systems for registration for vaccination and so on.

Audrey Tang: We made sure, in our digital systems, that people who even migrant workers that has long – how do I put this neutrally – stayed long past their expiration [laughs] of the certificate nevertheless get vaccination, based on the spirit of universal health. I believe this is really not a question of national versus non-national.

Audrey Tang: This year, we are beginning a research, for the whole year, about how should we adjust the rather fixed definition of what constitutes as universal access to broadband network.

Audrey Tang: When we say broadband is a human right, we certainly don’t just mean broadband is a ROC national citizen right. [laughs] That doesn’t sound as good. [laughs] We want to change the way the universal service fund works.

Audrey Tang: On the other hand, the universal access fund is not a taxpayer fund. It is a fund that is willingly contributed – well, by law, so somewhat willingly contributed – by all telecom operators to fund, to subsidize, telecom users in remote places.

Audrey Tang: It never gets into the treasury of our country, but rather it’s basically a structured subsidy payment system for the telecoms to base on their revenue to spend a portion of their profits to such universal access uses. The fund is quite sizable, and if we can redirect part of the fund to this, it will easily cover the FAA needs.

Audrey Tang: The question is how to convince the existing telecom providers that this also is maybe not in letter, but in spirit of the universal access. That is also one angle that we should explore. Once the research concludes by the end of this year, it may take effect on the next year.

Female Participant: The research is being conducted by your ministry?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, so we’re still on the procurement process to find the research team that re-explore what your universal access looks like.

Audrey Tang: For example, the current universal access fund does not provide for people with hearing or speech impairments for the use of the video relay service for the interpreter when they seek medical help because obviously, tele-compliance is not anything physical. It’s not fiber optics.

Audrey Tang: On the other hand, if someone is speech or hearing impaired and they need emergency communication for medical services, without such interpretation service, it’s as good as having no Internet.

Audrey Tang: It doesn’t really matter whether it’s provided by fixed broadband providers or by some AI company that provides this interpretation. There are many people who think that this should also qualify for the universal access criteria. This is just one example.

Female Participant: Who did you say you have to convince to shift allocation of those funds?

Audrey Tang: There’s a Universal Service Board that governs the use. I chair the board. The funding is provided by Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Mobile, Far EasTone, the telecom providers. We need to convince their employers [laughs] that our interpretation of the telecommunication law in this new way is kosher. This is inclusive.

Audrey Tang: We need to make a very sound case that, although the letter says the nationals, however, in some cases like medical services and so on, you cannot really tell a national from non-national, where they need medical help and so on. That is the work that we’re going to do this year. Your use case is also a very convincing use case. It’s even more clear-cut than the video relay service.

Female Participant: Let us know if there’s anything that we can put together for them. We also, of course, have our legal team within our organization. Any presentation or briefing paper, anything that we can put together to make the case in a legal way for why the fishing sector is a exceptional case, why the migrant fishers should be considered in this case, we can put that together.

Female Participant: Of course, the idea of inclusivity and who has a right to be included, I do think it’s part of our democracy. At the same time, having access to all these services, but also access to a minimum infrastructure is precisely what this company is about. Also, the fact that just because you have the WiFi on vessel doesn’t mean that the workers have access to it.

Female Participant: It’s also going to enforce the ability of the right for workers to access the WiFi on the vessels that may have the WiFi. There is a sense that workers should have the ability, like a safe circle community model, that they are also making sure that even women will have that access. They have the right to make sure it’s implemented. That it’s working right.

Female Participant: That is not necessarily low-end productivity, but it’s actually working in a way that is helpful to everybody, etc.

Audrey Tang: Of course.

Female Participant: We also don’t want to just be part of the technical part. We also have to think about it from the users, like what is the best thing at the vessel level, which is, again, how do workers have that capacity. To us, it would be a fantastic thing to make sure that these are the communities that are excluded from this right. How do we bring them into the fold?

Female Participant: How do we make sure that all those rights – healthcare, mental health, access to labor, worker rights organizations, human rights organizations, and mainly their children and family – how does that look?

Female Participant: I do think your support of this and what you’re saying, it’s quite a refreshing conversation because you get it completely. That’s fantastic.

Audrey Tang: I would also add that our minister of health and welfare founded last year the Department of Mental Health for the first time. Previously, it was a subdivision within some other department. From last year onward, now there is a dedicated department for mental health, which means that it’s as important as, say, long-term care.

Audrey Tang: It gives priority to essential health services. We know it’s essential, but it’s harder to argue that it’s essential compared to major trauma treatment or things like that. I think, in specific working conditions, it is actually more essential than many people think. To get that message out is also very important.

Female Participant: Also isolation I think. In countries in which we live and/or are working, the issue of isolation through COVID…

Audrey Tang: [laughs]

Female Participant: …through COVID has been…

Audrey Tang: Yeah, quarantines.

Female Participant: …increasing the issue of mental health, especially in young people, especially on isolated workers that can’t be outside or whatever. We do believe mental health is one of the things we have been discussing here very openly.

Female Participant: Also family welfare, family health in terms of these connective tissues that we believe are just going to happen without talking to somebody for a year. This is very essential. We are thinking about reaching out to supporters of mental health, family welfare, because we believe there is also an intersectionality there we should explore.

Female Participant: Thank you for mentioning that, that we can maybe reach out to this minister now.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, I think that’s an important angle.

Male Participant: Also, during COVID, the only way that we can go meet with the fishers in the port was Internet. At the time, we couldn’t receive the fishing vessels during COVID, so they connect with us with the WiFi. Some of them, they tried to say their stories of sadness or something happened at home, but they cannot go home.

Male Participant: They were trying to say their stories with us. We tried to console them through accompany them in that difficult moment. That’s the reason I was insisting on having WiFi, because it is very important.

Male Participant: I’m very happy what you said for the inclusion. It is really important because, if you look deeper into this industry, there are around 30,000 foreign visas – only few Taiwanese are working on the fishing vessels – and they contribute to a big amount of money for Taiwan fishing industry.

Male Participant: I think they are key workers in this particular case. If they contribute something for the fishing industry, then it is right that they are included also in the necessary services. As Valery was saying, some fishers may have digital devices for years, but they don’t have the access.

Female Participant: It’s just for captains.

Male Participant: Yeah, only the captain, so there must be inclusion.

Female Participant: In the practice, yeah. We don’t want subsidies that don’t trickle all the way down and all the way up.

Male Participant: In some of our meetings with fishery agency, because I always attend the meeting with Taiwan fishery agency, we talk about this. Some of the participants said, no, if you have WiFi, it can stop them in their working. I was going to say, “No, it is not…You control the Internet. If you want, you can have two hours. You can just open for two hours, and that’s it.”

Male Participant: What is important for us is they are able to connect with the families or people outside.

Audrey Tang: I want to ask a clarifying question. When you said denying access, do you mean that, for example, the WiFi has a password that you don’t have? Or, do you mean that your phone, which is your property, is taken away from you?

Male Participant: They have the phones, but they cannot have the access to WiFi. Most probably, they did not give you the password or whatever.

Audrey Tang: But your phone is your property, is never taken away from you?

Male Participant: No.

Female Participant: Do they ever…

Male Participant: Never.

Audrey Tang: OK, good.

Male Participant: It’s not confiscated. Some documents still confiscated, some cases of confiscation of document like passport for the crews are still happening in some cases. For ports, it’s rarely happening there. Also, some captains don’t allow them to hold their phones while they are working because some captains are doing something illegal, like catching sharks.

Audrey Tang: And the phones are all cameras, right? [laughs]

Male Participant: Yeah.

Facilitator: What does it mean? Where do they have to put their phones while they’re working?

Male Participant: In their room.

Facilitator: In their own room?

Male Participant: Yeah.

Facilitator: They have to leave it.

Audrey Tang: There’s electricity to charge the phone?

Male Participant: Yes.

Audrey Tang: All that is not a problem?

Male Participant: Yeah.

Male Participant: Yeah, not the problem, just the rules on board. While you are working, no phones. It’s just rules on many fishing vessels.

Audrey Tang: It’s also the case in some construction fields.

Facilitator: It’s a health and safety question…

Audrey Tang: They say it’s distracting or things like that, but also the fact that it has a camera. [laughs] If there’s a good reason, there’s a not-so-good reason. I’m happy to hear that the electricity, the charging, the safety in your own room is protected.

Audrey Tang: It opens a new possibility, which is a phone that has satellite connectivity. The phone with such connectivity, like to Starlink, will solve this problem without relying on the goodwill of the vehicle captain. Later this year, I think T-Mobile will provide such a phone, and I think more will follow.

Audrey Tang: To be sure, it’s not a satellite dish. While you can post video, you cannot do high-quality video conference. You can do phone conversation of a really high quality, but the video, you will have to do asynchronously, like you record and wait a little bit. That is still better than nothing.

Female Participant: That’s already…

Female Participant: Just so I’m trying to understand. This means a new type of phone so that it would require workers to buy a new…

Audrey Tang: A new phone, basically.

Female Participant: What would be the cost?

Audrey Tang: The newer iPhones, the newest one, already contains satellite communication for emergency use to send messages.

Female Participant: That’s very helpful for the…

Audrey Tang: Of course. On the other hand, though, 5G phones used to be very premium and expensive, but everybody has seen that after a year or so, now they’re a commodity. Usually, competition drives the price to affordable levels within a year or two. I’m not a market analyst. I don’t know whether it’s a year or two. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: This is another way out, especially when there is such an option. For example, one crew member has a satellite connectivity. They can also open their own WiFi hotspot so that their colleagues can share on the bandwidth. It’s not that everyone has to buy a new phone. It’s just one person on that vehicle have to own a new phone.

Female Participant: Is there a service fee for that, or…?

Audrey Tang: For Starlink, it’s very reasonable.

Female Participant: The role of the union would also be helpful to make sure that every vessel has…

Audrey Tang: At least one such phone.

Female Participant: …at least one worker’s representative. If there is a need for communication around abuses, or around health, or around things that we are advocating for, then that could be the structure because we really care about the structure of workers being able to protect themselves from retaliation.

Female Participant: Again, we’re not assuming this is happening in Taiwan. We just know that to be true in the industry, in general. All of these mechanisms of making sure that the union or Stella Maris has to make sure that everybody has an ability to connect. That would be such an amazing infrastructure to develop jointly, perhaps.

Female Participant: That’s very interesting.

Audrey Tang: One of the contributions the ministry may make is over the course of this year and next to try out such mobile satellite receivers for secure communication.

Audrey Tang: Already we are allocating 700 satellite receivers around Taiwan for the emergency communication when large earthquakes break our submarine cables for example, natural or unnaturalearthquakes… We are going to remain connected.

Female Participant: Regardless of what?

Audrey Tang: Regardless of cost, we need to connect to the world. I think our interests align with yours in that particular regard, because when the submarine cables are cut, Taiwan becomes a vessel in the sea, right? Exactly the same as your condition.

Female Participant: I love that. There will be more empathy.

Male Participant: Yes. The world will want to know at those times what is happening in Taiwan. The journalists, for example, will need to have access to at least, as I mentioned, this video store-and-forward capability, even if not real-time video, to get the truth out of what’s happening in Taiwan.

Male Participant: That is also an angle because it’s not universal service, it’s just for emergency communication and so on. But investment to make sure that even on very far places, exceptional circumstances, there’s some bandwidth related for video communication that aligns with at least one emergency phone on board. Idea that you just proposed. So that is another angle.

Female Participant: Father, maybe you can talk about the surveys that we’ve been doing around the need for WiFi because maybe, Priscilla, all your amazing work can be shared.

Female Participant: Before we start all of this thing, we conducted the initial survey about how many vessels have already installed WiFi, and it’s only 45 percent of vessels in Kaohsiung Port. In Nan Kan Nan there is no vessel that has installed WiFi. If they already installed WiFi, it’s also limited access for the WiFi, only 30 megabytes in the month.

Female Participant: We think that is not enough for them to communicate with their family. Right now, we are collecting the survey and also petition from the fishers because we want to know their needs. We want to know how this WiFi could help them to communicate with their family back home…

Female Participant: And with us.

Female Participant: Yes. We really work together to make this thing happen. Maybe not in a long time, we can make this thing happen with your support, too.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, certainly. As I mentioned, the newer generation of non-geostationary satellites work fundamentally technically in a different way. It’s likely that they will only be limited by speed, but not by meter, by maximum use per month.

Audrey Tang: That is good news for everyone [laughs] because if you want to send a video, maybe you can wait for a couple of hours for it to be completely sent out. That’s not the problem. If you say every month you can only send five seconds of video, that doesn’t really count. [laughs] We need to move to a different expectation structure.

Male Participant: I have a question.

Audrey Tang: Yes.

Male Participant: For me, I have a question. You were mentioning several recent development in technologies like Starlink, new iPhone, T-Mobile, and so on. According to your explanation, it is new. How long do you think it takes to be a common consumption for people, and affordable for the vessel owner, and accessible for us? How long do you think it’s going to be?

Audrey Tang: As I mentioned, it doesn’t need to be a universal commodity. It only needs to be more desirable and less expensive than the current 300,000 NT dollar satellite receiver that the FAA is subsidizing the vehicle owners because the reason that they can only cover it 10 percent, sounds to me that it’s just cost-based reasoning.

Audrey Tang: Maybe it’s not yet that you will be a normal phone, which is only a few thousand NT dollars now. Even if it’s 10 times more, like 10 or 20 NT dollars phone, like a high-end phone, it’s still 10 percent of what used to be a satellite receiver. Because we only need to hit the spot where it’s 10 percent of the previous cost, not one percent of the previous cost, which is that of the commodity phone.

Audrey Tang: I think by early next year or the end of this year, we will hit the point where a satellite receiver is just 10 percent of what the FAA is subsidizing, but I cannot tell you how long it takes for the commodification for it to be 1 percent of the current vehicle because that depends on market situation and also on demand.

Audrey Tang: If there’s a lot of demands, then the commodification happens faster. If there is only a specialized demand, like in your work fields or people hiking high mountains, but their calculation stays small sized, then maybe we never moved to this point because there’s no desire to mass manufacture such equipments.

Audrey Tang: That’s not our end goal. Our end goal is actually just here because if FAA already committed to subsidize this bucket and it covers 10 percent, so we only need to drive cost to the 10 percent…

Female Participant: You already need to…

Audrey Tang: …10 percent, to that point.

Female Participant: I wanted to ask you, but did you have another point?

Audrey Tang: No.

Female Participant: Just about the issue of safe and secure WiFi. For example, when I use my phone for human rights purposes, I have to use Signal or Telegram or something like that.

Female Participant: I’m thinking for migrant workers, if they’re going to be communicating with their union or like human rights organizations, do you have some suggestions on how we could put together a training package or a workshop for migrant fishers to make sure that they are using WiFi in the safest way possible. Have you considered this topic, anti-surveillance?

Audrey Tang: For Telegram, it really needs special setup for it to be end-to-end encrypted, that is to say it’s completely secure. By default, it’s not end-to-end multi-factor authentication and so on. You need to remind yourself to do that. On the other hand, Signal, by default, is end-to-end encrypted. I use Signal much more than I do Telegram.

Audrey Tang: I’m not saying Telegram is insecure. It’s just you have to use it in a way with certain settings and so on that you prefer end-to-end encryption, but that’s default in Signal. Nowadays, Signal is a good example because it already reached this commodity place. People are using it even if they’re not privacy advocates, and we need this kind of technological development.

Audrey Tang: Our work, as part of our democracy network, is to jointly invest in cybersecurity products that have good usability, that is easier to use than non-secure products. That has the corresponding awareness campaigns in multiple jurisdictions.

Audrey Tang: At the moment, though, our National Institute of Cybersecurity is focusing our investment in those regards to the so-called frontline countries, countries that are withstanding high levels of cyber attack from nearby adversaries in the countries that are signatories to the Declaration for the Future of the Internet, the 60-plus DFI countries that are liberal democracies.

Audrey Tang: If they’re a liberal democracy that is currently withstanding high level of cyberattack from a nearby autocracy, these are the jurisdictions we’re investing such training and investment to. We will make sure that our investment produce public material, that is to say unrestricted by onerous copyright or whatever, so-called intellectual property. It may be freely translated and repurposed for such uses.

Female Participant: That will be great. For freedom of association, this is quite an important part. At the end, you want to discuss violations of rights. We need to make sure that communication is also protected from surveillance. Otherwise, there is repression and see that we can intervene in real time.

Female Participant: The real-time, how do we make sure that we have real-time solutions to things that might be really risky for workers? Whether it’s health and safety, whether it’s issues of health, whether it’s issues of not having breaks after so many hours, because we know that happens. When there is fish, workers don’t get breaks, and that also is health and safety issue that, in real time, we can access.

Female Participant: For us, this is really crucial. This is very hopeful, I think, to think about other access, whether that’s digital like satellite we haven’t considered. We’re very much thinking about WiFi as the only way, but, yes, this will actually…

Audrey Tang: For this year, certainly, but for next year, many more options.

Female Participant: Yes, this is an issue of timing. Great. How do we make it affordable?

Audrey Tang: In the US, the EFF, surveillance self-defense from the Electronic Frontier Foundation is a great resource. I think the Taiwanese Open Culture Foundation worked on the translation for the EFF surveillance self-defense.

Female Participant: What is the name? I’m sorry.

Audrey Tang: The Open Culture Foundation, the OCF. Maybe you can also reach out to them. I don’t know whether they’re still doing the NGO cybersecurity training based on the surveillance self-defense. Even if they’re not actively doing that campaign, they know the right people who can be your allies in doing that campaign.

Facilitator: That’s really helpful. You mentioned you’re also working with Access Now.

Audrey Tang: I signed a pledge from Access Now, and I’m on their mailing list for WhyID, but that was before the Ministry of Digital Affairs. That was in my previous role.

Facilitator: We’ll be attending their Rightscon annual event in Costa Rica later this year. They’ve invited us.

Female Participant: Yeah, they’ve invited us…

Facilitator: Will you be joining them?

Audrey Tang: I was in 2020 Rightscon, I think, but I don’t know. It’s my staff and foreign ministry planning my travels now, parliamentary interpolation and budget defense duties, as I’m not as free to roam as my previous job.

Facilitator: Some sacrifices you’ve made.

Audrey Tang: Some sacrifices.

Audrey Tang: Anything else then?

Male Participant: Anyone…

Facilitator: Other questions?

Male Participant: Anyone with a question, Nofian?

Facilitator: Just next steps I think for us.

Facilitator: Sorry.

Male Participant: Nofian says what we want to say during this visit is we really need your attention for our welfare while we are working on a fishing run on the high seas. We really need your attention of how we can stay connected with our families, first of all, as in this campaign. Maybe a communication is not a dream anymore for us any time soon in the future.

Audrey Tang: I can meet to forward the pledge that you provided to me, not just me personally, but also me in the role of the chair of the Universal Access Fund, to our research team exploring the Universal Access restructuring and reformation.

Audrey Tang: Also, I will work with my colleagues to see if I can sign the pledge in my current position. Even if I cannot, understand that I’m with you. Thank you.

Female Participant: Thank you so much.

Audrey Tang: Thank you.

Female Participant: It’s really, yeah…

Audrey Tang: …and happy new year.

Female Participant: Yes.

Facilitator: It makes us really happy. We also brought our campaign t-shirt…

Audrey Tang: Sure, of course.

Facilitator: …as a gift for you. We have it in a few sizes, so we can give you…

Audrey Tang: The largest one for me.

Male Participant: Let me give it to you…

Facilitator: Maybe we can give you a few for your other colleagues.

Audrey Tang: Of course.

Facilitator: We’ll just give you…

Audrey Tang: The pack.

Facilitator: Yeah, the pack, and you can share with anyone.

Audrey Tang: Thank you.

Facilitator: He is wearing our t-shirt.

Audrey Tang: Ah, that’s the t-shirt.

Facilitator: That’s the t-shirt. You can see on there the fishing boat with WiFi access.

Audrey Tang: Let me see if there is one with my size.

Facilitator: If not, we can also send you, there’s…

Audrey Tang: If you can give me a couple minutes, I’ll put this on.

Facilitator: Oh, yeah, great.