In recent years, a dramatic rise in scams has affected people's lives and threatened the security of their personal assets. To crack down on these offenses, the Executive Yuan formulated a set of next-generation anti-fraud strategy guidelines in July 2022, mobilizing cooperation across government ministries and agencies. The government has also amended five laws—the Criminal Code of the Republic of China, Human Trafficking Prevention Act, Personal Data Protection Act, Money Laundering Control Act, and Securities Investment Trust and Consulting Act—to impose heavier penalties for deepfake fraud, unauthorized custody of individuals, human trafficking and other related fraud crimes, as well as strengthen online platform requirements for advertisers to register their real names.
To upgrade the government's fraud-fighting methods, the Executive Yuan issued version 1.5 of the strategy guidelines in May 2023. The updated guidelines focus on the four areas of identifying, preventing, intercepting and punishing fraud, to lower the overall number of incidents and accomplish the three goals of reducing exposure, reducing deception and reducing harm caused by scams.
Main points
■ Identifying fraud (via educational campaigns): Promote awareness campaigns across all fields and industries, enlisting cooperation between central and local governments, and between public and private sectors. Introduce anti-fraud concepts into legal education.
■ Preventing fraud (via telecommunications networks): Promote digital trust technologies, such as the establishment of the 111 government-exclusive SMS platform to prevent the public from falling victim to messages sent by fraudsters masquerading as government agencies. Encourage e-commerce companies to strengthen data security and adopt technology that substitutes a recipient's phone number on delivery orders with a proxy number, thus protecting personal data and trust in online shopping environments. Work with telecom companies to stop fraud at the source by blocking calls from overseas fraudsters who spoof Taiwanese phone numbers, as well as to raise public vigilance by playing audio warnings when calls from international numbers are received.
■ Intercepting fraud (via money flows): Interrupt illegal transactions by encouraging financial institutions to ask confirmation questions when customers conduct large in-person transactions; strengthening anti-fraud measures in applications for designated accounts for wire transfers; introducing gradual regulation of virtual asset trading platform operators; blocking investment-related advertisement scams from online platforms; instituting internal control mechanisms within online game companies and locking in-game credit purchases when suspicious activity is detected; requiring third-party payment providers to establish review mechanisms for their clients; and promoting awareness campaigns across financial institutions nationwide.
■ Punishing fraud (via law enforcement): Establish the Fraud and Cybersecurity Center with a focus on cracking down on violent gangs, punishing fraudulent groups and cutting off illegal money flows. Improve the confiscation of criminal proceeds, restitution of stolen assets, and assistance for fraud victims. Strengthen mechanisms to transfer, freeze and seize domestic and international virtual currencies.