Many cases regarding the personal information exposed were discussed and disclosed by the local media, though the government announced the new version of law, the actual improvement is limited especially at small and medium sized corporations. It is easily to steal personal information as long as outsiders would like to approach the core person at the company, and make trustful connections with them, the data of all staffs are leaked by accident. Some local companies do not even set up HR department for managing personal data. The recent marathon event in Taipei was disclosed by the public that many data of participants were exposed before the matathon started. Such incident was not new to us, but it just proved that the municipal government does not protect our data properly.

Tech products

Electronic products such as Xiaomi, Huawei, and monitors are one of easily data collectors. People are tend to buy cheaper products with less concern of data security, deeming themselves as nobody and do not consider that these devices may trace data of their family or friends. Some monitors which were made in China will even transfer data back to China for government usage, causing sensasion for the public in Taichung city few years ago. The Chinese famous hot pot restaurant, Haidilao, was disclosed before for having alomst 16 surveillance cameras, and all data and images are transferred to China. So, be careful when you are dining inside and do not talk something seriously.

Apps

Nowadays, there are tons of apps for both Android and iPhone users, while some are convenient and safe for everyone, some are dangerous and steal your data for business use. Social networking is one of the dangerous apps to use, though people start to realize its unsecurity, some just cannot get rid of it due to its function of attracting attention from the public. Wechat, Tiktok are commonly discussed by online users for their popularity and unsecurity, these are Chinese national apps for people who want to communicate with Chinese world under surveillance of each word.

Financial unsecurity

Many managers of local banks are afraid of money laundrying from overseas citizens with several steps to prevent people from doing illegal transactions now. However, some of procedures may not be so ideal especially some bank cashiers or insurance brokers may view our personal data when we need to apply for the insurance or check our balance account. Normally, the customer service team will not deal with personal data shared through phone or online in the West, so people need to visit the local bank by themselves in case somebody eavesdrops or steals information online. However, many banks in Taiwan still accept customers to share their personal data through phone talking, due to its convenience and impatience from customers. For local banks, we can adopt two steps for inputing our passwords when we check online accounts. This measure is applied in Japan, they would provide one card for passcode input, and each time the passcode is different from the system, so even the bank dealers may not be able to check your account. Currently, we can only change our passcode through online account without further steps to prevent data from stealing. For paper-based administration work, government can provide stickers for people after filling in information to cover the data before mail delivery. In this case, irrelevant person at the corporations may not be able to view the data.

Overall situation

Although many cases showed that personal data management is difficult to deal with, and it’s a hard procedure for everyone to follow, we should be more prudent during this period of time whether we are exposed under the tech, people that surround us, or the thrid party.