Daniel Knowles: I was watching your TED talk earlier and you talk about this radical transparency. It’s great.

Daniel Knowles: The story I’m writing, it’s basically about digital government and the pandemic. The thinking is now that governments are opening up again a bit in European countries, essentially, the argument is that governments which had been more radical in their digital innovation, to begin with, have probably done a better job of handling this pandemic.

Daniel Knowles: Second, governments that haven’t digitally innovated will have to do so now because they face a year or more, however long it takes…

Audrey Tang: We weren’t at all doing well during SARS in 2003, so our society also inoculated ourselves from that experience.

Daniel Knowles: I wanted to ask you about the Taiwanese experience because you guys seem to, A, you’ve had a very effective response to this pandemic. More generally, it seems like you have a pretty innovative and thoughtful digital unit.

Daniel Knowles: I’m interested in what other non-pandemic things that you’ve been able to do that, now, because of social distancing rules and because of the need to track and trace people and everything else are, now, services that you might be able to provide online and things like that, that that’s helping with.

Daniel Knowles: Perhaps, I’ll just ask you, first, if you could talk a bit about how digital innovation did work with Taiwan’s response to this virus because you really have had one of the best responses, it seems.

Audrey Tang: I shared that in my six-minute video that talks about fast, fair, and fun, so I will not repeat myself. You can simply quote from that video. I would say that the main thing is that everybody became an amateur epidemiologist. It’s a co-learning experience. Even though we learned a lot during our SARS experience back when it was a thing in 2003, this is SARS 2.0.

Audrey Tang: It’s actually something with very different characteristics. Because of that, the whole society learns, every 2:00 PM through the daily press conference of the CECC, of them calling the hotline 1922, of people coming up with social innovations, about mask availability, and other things.

Audrey Tang: The whole society learns with each other. I think that’s the basis of the Taiwan model, in that, it’s not a single, direct, top-down of any kind of imperative style lockdowns or emergency situation or whatever. This is a whole society learning together.

Daniel Knowles: You’ve been quite radical in how you publish data and making it all available to everybody, which I don’t there are all that many countries in the world which have managed to do that anywhere near as well, even if they have the data.

Audrey Tang: Many countries do that under the purview of the Freedom of Information Act but when they are published, it’s already like seven days later or a month later, which is actually considered fast by FOIA norms.

Audrey Tang: We publish, for example, when it comes to the pharmacist’s mask availability, every 30 seconds at that time, which actually makes it open API, not just open data because it’s almost real-time like a distribute ledger.

Daniel Knowles: That’s fascinating. How ready were your systems when this hit to implement those sorts of things?

Audrey Tang: Taiwan embraced open government data as a national direction at the end of 2014 because of a certain occupier of the parliament, of course. Because of that, we’ve had five years of experience of rapidly transitioning from a place where people, basically, hoard the information as silos within their own ministries and agencies to a new culture where people freely publish ready-for-use data for other, nearby agencies and ministries to work.

Audrey Tang: It’s almost a side effect that social innovators can also use that because, then, the pipeline between the different government agencies, they learn that open government data, the data platform, data.gov.tw, is really the best way, kind of a service hub for different agencies to do inter-agency work.

Daniel Knowles: Of course, one thinks, because you’ve been so effective in your track and trace system that you haven’t had some of the problems with widespread social distancing that, obviously, we’re having to have in countries like the UK. I just wondered what sort of services, as a citizen in Taiwan, can you do online that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to do everywhere?

Audrey Tang: You can pre-order the medical mask like the one that I’m holding. That’s something you can do online but not everybody have a phone registered under their own name, which was the most difficult thing because this is a real name rationing system. We have to make sure that there’s no double-spending so to speak.

Audrey Tang: You can use a national health insurance card and present that to your local convenience store or your local pharmacy. You just insert that IC card, which covers more than 99.99 percent of the, not just citizen actually, or residents who are here for more than six months also. A universal IC card really is the basis of the rationing system that makes the availability of the masks so simple to use.

Audrey Tang: Because of that, people who show any symptoms will be able to get a medical mask, just show up in the clinic, knowing fully that the single-payer system will take care of them without any financial burden.

Daniel Knowles: Fascinating. Actually, that’s a really interesting point because digital identity is quite an important thing, isn’t it?

Audrey Tang: Yes.

Daniel Knowles: To being able to access these services. That’s something where, in Britain, we’re really behind on because we don’t have any system. How does the Taiwan digital identity system work? Does everybody have to have one of these health insurance cards that you mentioned?

Audrey Tang: The NHI card which is universal. It’s universal, as in, mandatory. Everybody has such a card. The idea of the NHI card used in such a way, for public services, is actually something that people are really comfortable with because the NHI system is its own system. It’s not even connected to the public Internet. It’s a VPN. Everybody makes sure that this VPN works only for the purpose of public services.

Audrey Tang: There is, for example, no way to use your NHI card to withdraw money, for example. It’s not going to be used in a way that is outside of our public service, the public sector. There’s no private sector use, for financial or otherwise, by that VPN.

Audrey Tang: Once you connect to that virtual private network, you know you’re only accessing public services. You asked about the day. I think it’s also right after SARS. I think it’s 2004.

Daniel Knowles: That’s fascinating. You can verify your identity digitally when you’re going for a public service with that card?

Audrey Tang: That’s right. It’s not a card for e-signature. It’s not like the Estonia card but we do have a e-signature card for that, as well. I think only one-quarter of the population actually uses that for digital signature. For digital authentication, the NHI card is universal.

Daniel Knowles: That’s fascinating. Governments in lots of places are having to change quite rapidly and do things like make sure that they can get benefits assessments that were previously done in person done online. In New York City, they’ve made it possible for you to marry online, which previously wasn’t, to get the marriage license online because they’re having to close down public offices.

Daniel Knowles: I guess you’re not having to do to near the same extent. I’m wondering, what sort of services, in that way, can you…Are there any, things that you wouldn’t normally expect to be online, that you can, now, do in Taiwan? What might you be able to move towards as well?

Audrey Tang: Taiwan is really different because we’ve never had lockdowns.

Daniel Knowles: Exactly.

Audrey Tang: Our schools, even though we took two weeks to make sure that the schools have the masks and the hand sanitation kits, never closed either. I don’t think this is comparable, though.

Audrey Tang: While we do have, of course, online services for taxpaying and so on, people actually prefer…For example, I, personally, filed my taxes by going to a nearby convenience store, inserting my national health identity card, knowing that the kiosk is not connected to the Internet – it’s like an ATM – and knowing that I am connecting to the Ministry of Finance taxpaying service.

Audrey Tang: I can just print out that coupon. If my tax is below a certain number, I can just go to the counter in that convenience store and just pay it right there. What I’m trying to say is that this is not your ordinary official desk. This is more than 11,000 convenience stores open 24 hours everywhere in Taiwan.

Audrey Tang: If your income tax for the year is less than £534, then you can just pay over-the-counter in any convenience store. In theory, every convenience store, as well as, pharmacies, ATM, and so on, are a extension of our digital public service. Although it is still over-the-counter, it’s not the official desk counter.

Daniel Knowles: That’s incredible. That’s exactly the sort of thing I was hoping you’d tell me about. That’s great. Tell me, going forward, I was watching your TED talk, and I read some other interviews with you. It sounds like you have ideas about how this could go into democratic decision-making, too, so not just people accessing services but also taking part in government.

Daniel Knowles: It seems to me, from what I can tell, the only country in the world that has online voting is Estonia. How well could you move to it in Taiwan?

Audrey Tang: We actually had that in our national health insurance app. For people that get their rationed mask, there’s a certain quota. Currently, there’s nine per two weeks if you’re an adult, 10 if you’re a child. Of course, there’s now also a free market but before we ramped up the production to 20 million medical masks a day.

Audrey Tang: Of course, everybody does so through rationing pretty much but some people have extra. Maybe they don’t go outdoors as much. Maybe they have saved some medical masks before the pandemic. For these people, they do not collect, either from a pharmacy or convenience store, those medical masks.

Audrey Tang: Before long, they say we want to dedicate these to international humanitarian aid. This is something we call #taiwancanhelp. It’s a hashtag. We designed, based on popular demand, a button in the app that you can say, “For all my uncollected mask quota, I would like to dedicate it for international humanitarian assistance to the nurse and doctors.”

Audrey Tang: To date, we have collected more than five million medical masks from more than 600,000 citizens and half of them choose to reveal their name, so you can see who exactly dedicated how many mask quota to our international doctors and nurses. It’s not quite voting. It’s more like dedication. I think this is even more meaningful than voting because this has international repercussions.

Daniel Knowles: That’s really interesting. It is a way of allowing people to make decisions…

Audrey Tang: You can find all the names in the URL that I just sent you.

Daniel Knowles: Brilliant. I’ve got it. That’s amazing. How much further could that go? What are the next things that you could do with that sort of innovation, that sort of technology? What decisions, otherwise, could you do?

Audrey Tang: At the moment, we’re rolling out the stimulus coupons, stimulus vouchers, called the triple vouchers. The digital part of it is very simple. You just go through an online payment system or your credit card, mobile payment, or the EZ card, and so on. You choose one. Then, you spend some money but it needs to be over-the-counter, face-to-face. You need to go outdoors to spend that money.

Audrey Tang: That is because online platforms actually earned more revenue during the pandemic. You need to go to a physical, like a restaurant or a night market or whatever, and use your payment system to spend £80. Then, you can go to your nearby ATM and say, “I want to get two-thirds of that cashback.” Then, the ATM will give you back about £53 in cash.

Daniel Knowles: This money, that you gave a stimulus to people, they have had to spend in the businesses that have been, presumably, most affected?

Audrey Tang: Yeah, before the end of the year. Then, after you spend it, you receive a cashback. Chances are, you’ll also spend it because you’re nearby a ATM, so you’ll probably also spend it somewhere else, but also, physically. That’s how we stimulate the economy without going into over-complicated mechanisms.

Daniel Knowles: When you go and pay, you pay with your national health app or you pay with…

Audrey Tang: No, no, no, with their credit card or their online system, like a LINE Pay or other mobile payment system. That’s where you say, “I would like to dedicate this to over-the-counter, basically, to face-to-face spending.” We only learn of that. We don’t know what precise items you have bought.

Daniel Knowles: I see. It’s through the system that you can tell what…

Audrey Tang: Right. Then, you receive a message from your app or from an SMS, saying, “Now, you are eligible for the cashback.” After a week or so, you can go to any nearby ATM and withdraw, like £53 from the ATM.

Daniel Knowles: That’s incredible. That’s really incredible. That’s exactly the sort of thing I was hoping to find out. What about the digital engagement thing, the decision-making stuff, and the voting? How might you move toward more of that in the future?

Audrey Tang: We did that during the pandemic, actually, when we’re recovering already. We ran a co-hack, the coronavirus hackathon, or a collaboration hackathon, your pick. At cohack.tw, there’s more than seven countries and 53 teams that joined. We used exactly that kind of decision making, called Polis, an AI-based conversation system, to find common themes that work with all these different country’s norms.

Audrey Tang: We make sure that the best teams – there were five of them – we guarantee that our CECC, Central Epidemic Command Center, will talk to them, to collaborate together, and also, translate their work to English and other languages so that their idea…For example, there was one that keeps a local log of your whereabouts but it’s strictly in your phone. It’s like airplane mode. It doesn’t share it anywhere.

Audrey Tang: When the medical officer finds you for contact tracing, it generates a one-time URL with exactly the precise information that’s needed by contact tracing without divulging any privacy details of anybody else you have encountered. It’s a privacy-protecting tool for individuals when the contact tracers come and find them.

Audrey Tang: This flips the state surveillance around when it comes to community safeguarding itself. The idea is that the users manage the information independently. The data is stored in the mobile phone.

Audrey Tang: The concept, basically, is the central idea, what we call a citizen-centric data network. There must be a social base, a social sector control. Of course, it’s open-source and so on, in data access, before the personal data can actually be used in a way that is pro-social because then, people feel that it’s acting in their best interest.

Audrey Tang: That is the message we’re sharing, that only through a decision-making protocol but also by the product that we produce based on that consensus.

Daniel Knowles: That’s really interesting because, of course, one of the concerns with contact tracing, particularly with countries that have tried centralized apps, is that people don’t necessarily want the government to know exactly where they’ve been all of the time. You’ve gotten around that by having a decentralized system.

Audrey Tang: Exactly.

Daniel Knowles: Has Taiwan had privacy concerns as you’ve started putting everything transparently available? What have been the concerns?

Audrey Tang: Of course, we only publish data that is, in a sense, statistics, only the aggregate. There’s enormous social pressure for the CECC to publish precise travel history of the confirmed cases but that risks re-identifying their identity.

Audrey Tang: We did not, as a principle, do what South Korea did, in the sense that if the traditional contact tracing interviews work, we do not publish the travel history and whereabouts of those confirmed cases. That’s a different social norm. This is important. It’s because of that, people who show any symptom, they will be comfortable showing up to their local clinician and say, “I want to talk to a medical officer.”

Daniel Knowles: Of course, because in South Korea, they had that unfortunate outbreak that followed from the gay clubs, which of course, there was some backlash and lots of concerns. You’re only publishing that information if, and it hasn’t happened, but…

Audrey Tang: In aggregate.

Daniel Knowles: Your contact tracing system has worked pretty well so far, right? You’ve managed to crush every cluster…

Audrey Tang: That’s because we have, in the community, a R-value under 1. Even when there’s individual community transmission, it never spreads in the community because people wash their hands properly. They wear a mask to remind themselves to wash their hands properly, not touching your face, and also maintaining physical distance.

Daniel Knowles: The contact tracing avoids the superspreading, spread it type of situation. Then, everybody else maintaining basic social distancing measures stops any community transmission that does happen from spreading particularly far.

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

Daniel Knowles: Presumably, you’ll have to keep these systems up until there’s a vaccine. What do you think will last after there’s a vaccine? What have you done to respond to this that will let you do other things, I guess, when we don’t have to worry about the coronavirus?

Audrey Tang: Even after a successful vaccine for SARS 2.0, which is the current version, there’s no telling that whether there will be a SARS 3.0, so you never know.

Audrey Tang: Which means that some part of the hygiene practices, like the proper use of soap, the proper use of a medical mask when you show any symptoms, and indeed, when you forget to wash your hands, you wear a mask to remind yourself to wash your hands properly before touching your face.

Audrey Tang: I think that’s going to be norm. Actually, we get a lot less, almost no, flu cases, influenza, and so on, because all the respiratory diseases are gone when you practice those measures well, just good hygiene practices. I think that will be part of the new normal.

Daniel Knowles: Absolutely. What about on the digital side?

Audrey Tang: On the digital side, when people get into the habit of going to their local convenience store to pay their taxes and knowing that the card reader will always work, which wasn’t guaranteed before we had a mass rationing system, then people will learn that really, it doesn’t take much to work with a friendly staff in the convenience store who will walk you through the tax filing experience.

Audrey Tang: You don’t always have to go to the tax office. After all, we have hundreds of tax offices but we have, like, 12,000 convenience stores. I think it will be a much more friendly access to public services after that.

Daniel Knowles: What I find really interesting about that convenience store thing is it doesn’t seem to bump into the problem that you have in moving into purely online digital services.

Audrey Tang: That’s right. They’re still a friendly staff.

Daniel Knowles: …engage with it.

Audrey Tang: That’s right. For people with blindness, for people with other neurodiversity and so on, of course, they need someone to help. The staff is there to help.

Daniel Knowles: Brilliant. I think that covers most of my questions. If I need to check anything, I’ll follow…

Daniel Knowles: …of course, I can download the transcript so I can check the quotes properly.

Audrey Tang: That’s right.

Daniel Knowles: The piece will be coming out in the next week or two, probably in two weeks.

Audrey Tang: I’ll send you the transcript.

Daniel Knowles: Thank you.

Audrey Tang: Most of the Taiwan model is contained in the two links that I just shared with you. If you need anything else, just email me.

Daniel Knowles: OK because it’s an international piece about lots of countries and here is one country that has done it really well. It does seem like you guys were ahead of the curve. That’s what’s made it possible for you to react so quickly. If you look at, for example, some American states, they’ve had completely the opposite because they hadn’t invested in this stuff.

Daniel Knowles: They don’t even have contact tracing. They also have, just things like welfare and unemployment insurance systems have completely crashed because people can’t log on or anything. I think, in Britain, we’re somewhere in between. We have some things that have worked very well and some things that have not worked well at all.

Audrey Tang: We’re happy to help. We’re always happy to help. Thank you.

Daniel Knowles: Thank you so much for your time, Audrey. Goodbye.

Audrey Tang: Cheers. Bye.