Joint Statement on the Adjudication of the Litigation of eID: Milestones Have Been Reached

The preventive injunction litigation of eID began in 2020. It attempts to alleviate the dilemma of not being able to vote after the announcement of the expiration of the old ID card for those who refused the mandatory issuance of chip/digital ID cards under the "Total Replacement" new eID policy. The Taipei High Administrative Court today dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that it did not fulfill the legal elements of “Preventive Injunction”. Despite the procedural non-compliance, the court stated in the gist of the reasoning of the judgment in the press release that "eID imposes on individuals the function of digital identification that can generate a large number of 'digital footprints' and puts individuals in a situation where they can be profiled in detail, fundamentally altering the shape of the current identification system and affecting people's information autonomy and privacy rights to a great extent,” and made the specific conclusion that mandating people to replace eIDs with those authorized by the Household Registration Act is "clearly contrary to the principle of reservation of laws”.

Preventive injunction litigation as a type of litigation is rare in Taiwan, and there is a lack of significant successful precedents relating to social welfare. Although we were not able to eliminate the recurrence of future mandatory replacement in Taiwan through this litigation, several milestones were accomplished in the course of it. First, the Executive Yuan announced the suspension of the policy and promised to proceed with the legislative and related amendments. Subsequently, the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) will also amend regulations regarding the digital ID card in the Household Registration Act.

One can freely choose to hold a non-digital ID card according to their own needs should be the bottom line of policies regarding the electronic identification card(eID). There have always been long-standing concerns in Taiwan about the abuse of personal information and the collection of identity information in both the public and private sectors. These concerns should be strictly examined, and regulations should be established to limit the collection of such information and to implement the principle of data minimization. Data leakage’s damage is visible, while the abuse of data collection is hard to detect. Taiwan's existing problems can only be solved by reconsidering the nonsensical ID checking and collection scenarios in a holistic manner, rather than replacing them with a fully digital approach. If the prevalence of practices such as "withholding personal identification documents at the door" and "offering discounts for showing ID card information”  which are replaced by digital methods to obtain information or leave records by sensing persists, Taiwan would not be able to get rid of the environment of abusive collection of personal information. Only by respecting the right of individuals to choose to hold a non-digital ID card with minimal data according to their needs can digital development avoid the risk of degenerating into a society governed by a “real-name system”. Forcing citizens to give away autonomy and privacy is not the right way to consolidate a democratic society.

Joint statement by: Taiwan Association for Human Rights(TAHR), Judicial Reform Foundation(JRF)

Press contact: Taiwan Association for Human Rights | Chou Kuan-Ju