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Executive Yuan passed draft amendments to “Three Anti-Scam Laws”



Given that there have been numerous scams recently, on 13 April 2023, the Executive Yuan passed the draft amendments to “Three Anti-Scam Laws”, including the Personal Data Protection Act (“PDPA”), the Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Act (“SITC Act”), and the Anti-Money Laundering Act (“AML Act”), and will submit the same to the Legislative Yuan for its review and deliberation soon, hoping to fight scams effectively from various approaches. Below is a summary of the draft amendments to “Three Anti-Scam Laws”:

 
1.     Draft Amendments to the PDPA
 
Given that there have been numerous data leaks and breaches recently, causing victims to be targeted by fraudsters, to urge non-government agencies to strengthen personal data protection, the draft amendments to the PDPA plan to (i) establish an independent supervisory authority dedicated to personal data protection matters (i.e., the Personal Data Protection Commission; “PDPC”); and (ii) raise the penalties for data security breaches.  The PDPC will integrate those enforcement powers spread among local government authorities and central competent authorities in charge of the relevant industries under the PDPA and take over the responsibility of interpreting the PDPA from the National Development Council, hoping to solve the enforcement difficulties encountered due to the decentralized approach of management and establish an independent supervision mechanism for personal data protection as required by the Constitutional Court’s judgment of 12 August 2022 (Ref. No. 111-Shien-Pan-13). On the other hand, if there is a data breach, the PDPC may impose an administrative fine ranging from NT$20,000 to NT$2,000,000 immediately, without needing to designate a time limit for the non-government agency to rectify the breach first. If the non-government agency fails to rectify the breach within such time limit or the breach is material, the aforesaid administrative fine can be raised to between NT$100,000 and NT$10,000,000.
 
2.     Draft Amendments to the SITC Act
 
To prevent online investment scams, in addition to stipulating prohibited types of advertisements for non-securities investment trust/consulting enterprises (e.g., investment advertisements involving any business requiring a special license, guaranteeing returns and profits, or impersonating celebrities), the draft amendments to the STIC Act plan to establish a real-name and take-down mechanism for online investment advertisements, requiring internet platform providers to (i) specify advertisers’ and sponsors’ names and other relevant information when publishing or broadcasting online investment advertisements; and (ii) remove, restrict access to, cease broadcasting, or adopt other necessary measures when becoming aware of any illegal online investment advertisements; otherwise, the internet platform providers shall be jointly liable to victims who suffer from fraud.
 
3.     Draft Amendments to the AML Act
 
Given that scam gangs often collect the accounts opened/applied by others with financial institutions, virtual currency platforms, or third-party payment service providers (“Dummy Accounts”), to block the sources of Dummy Accounts, the draft amendments to the AML Act (i) stipulate a crime of “collecting accounts without a legitimate cause”, prohibiting any person from collecting Dummy Accounts through bribery, violence, threats, fraud, or other improper means (violators may be subject to a sentence of up to five years’ imprisonment and a criminal fine of up to NT$4,000,000), which will have extra-application over Taiwan citizens outside of Taiwan; and (ii) prohibit any person from providing Dummy Accounts to another person(s) without a legitimate cause (violators will receive a reprimand from local government police departments first; nonetheless, violators who accepted a bribe, provided three Dummy Accounts or more, or committed the same crime within five years after receiving the aforesaid reprimand may face criminal liability, up to three years’ imprisonment and a criminal fine of up to NT$1,000,000).
 
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