In response to public concern that the government's promotion of big data and open data might intrude on personal privacy, the government has established national standards CNS29100 and CNS29191 for data de-identification and will first apply them to government agencies and then promote their adoption by the private sector, Premier Chang San-cheng stated today.
The premier made these remarks while presiding over an ad hoc meeting on data de-identification, which is the deletion or masking of personal identifiers within data, such as names and identification numbers, in order to protect individuals' privacy.
The Executive Yuan stated that the national standards CNS29100 and CNS29191 were announced in 2014 and 2015, respectively, and cover de-identification of open data and big data. The Fiscal Information Agency of the Ministry of Finance (MOF) has taken the lead in implementation and certification of these standards, becoming the nation's first model agency in de-identification. The Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Health and Welfare will soon follow in the agency's footsteps, further advancing the government's protection of personal data.
The premier reiterated that the administration is taking the initiative to de-identify government data in order to alleviate citizens' concerns about privacy protection. "Private industries that have collected huge amounts of personal data, such as the finance and high-tech sectors, will also implement such protection based on the established national standards," Chang added.