Bye.

Thank you so much.

Great.

Hopefully, yeah.

[laughs]

Yeah. Thank you so much.

[laughs]

[laughs]

Oh wow. OK. Marc, are you [laughs] …?

When is Taiwan going to open up again? When do you think this will be over for Taiwan?

We’re coming up on time, but just to finish things up, looking forward in the long run, what’s the Taiwanese government’s plan for leaving the pandemic? When will this all be over, because right now, life here is fairly normal, but the borders are still closed?

Right.

Yeah. [laughs]

[laughs]

[laughs]

I hope we can include some graphics in the [laughs] interview.

Oh, yes.

Right.

OK.

That’s fair, but that particular vaccine information in sight, do you think has there been an issue with fake news or misinformation? How have you been dealing with that?

I’m specifically curious because I saw that a recent survey estimates that the Taiwanese public’s willingness to take a COVID vaccine is as low as 40 percent. That seems like a possible sign of misinformation or mistrust in the government. I’m curious how you…

To what extent has misinformation and fake news been an issue in Taiwan during the pandemic? What or how has the government been combating it?

Just to touch on another topic briefly before we spend time, time really flies, I briefly want to talk about information and communication, especially combating of misinformation.

Especially as digital minister, you have, if I understand correctly, more of an advisory role for governments. Were there any instances where you specifically which the government had listened to you more or where you would’ve changed, would’ve done things differently if you had more independent power that is not ...

Looking back, and particularly in light of this, it sounds quite complicated for individual citizens to be able to uphold their privacy rights. Do you think in hindsight, the government could’ve done a better job of empowering its citizens to protect the privacy and also demand this privacy to be ...

Right. That makes sense. Actually, in that sense also, if there is some uncertainty around this. You’re a digital minister, but you’re also a minister without portfolio. This question in particular also touches on data protection which, as far as I understand, there’s not much of a legal basis.

Was there any digital surveillance? Was that used as part of containing that outbreak, which seems contained now successfully?

Do you have a sense of…? I’m not sure how close you work with the CECC, but I’m specifically curious whether you know whether any digital surveillance was used as part of contact tracing the Taiyuan outbreak recently. The CECC had to find contacts of the people who are infected ...

The way I understand is that it sometimes happens in contact tracing, so if someone is tested positive that then it’s used retrospectively to find possible contacts.

My understanding that this means that the local health offices sometimes work with the police, and ask police to access sometimes phone data, sometimes credit card data, and sometimes surveillance cameras. I’m curious because that’s different from…

I have one follow up on this to where…This is the one thing I’ve been trying to look into, in that it has been quite difficult, because there hasn’t been that much information about it. There’s some reports of some digital surveillance being used retrospectively as part of contact tracing. ...

There is a degree of a trade off between privacy and fighting the pandemic, because you have some measure that is either you’ve physically kept in the location, or you have the digital surveillance. It’s one of those.

[laughs]

The question was open.

Yeah, very intrusive. I saw a recent study, by Academia Seneca, that said that over 70 percent of respondents said that they would be OK with the government using telephone location to check people’s location as part of pandemic prevention, not just limited to quarantine. Do you think that there ...

Yeah. [laughs] Following up more also on the technical side of things, as a graduate student who also looks at tech policy sometimes, I’m specifically curious how you feel about…You described the digital fence, and you describe it as something that is quite privacy preserving. To a lot of Germans, ...

Especially today.

[laughs]

[laughs]

[laughs]

[laughs]

[laughs]

Do you have an example in mind that you’re thinking of where the CECC or Minister Chen had to correct himself in the recent past?

You mentioned earlier how important it is that now there’s only one source of information, the CECC. Isn’t there a bit of a contradiction there with this idea that there’s a bottom up process? On the one hand, you’re talking about this bottom up process. On the other hand, you’re ...

One criticism that we hear in Germany a lot is that Germany cannot possibly learn from Taiwan because Taiwan was only able to beat the virus because it is an island. Germany, as a country in the middle of the Schengen Area, in the middle of the European Union, could ...

Would you mind expanding a bit on which areas you discussed, or which areas you think Germany might be able to learn from?

Parliament? OK.

As Germans, we’re very curious. Taiwan has done so well in combating the pandemic. Has any part of the German government ever contacted you and asked for advice, or tried to talk to Taiwan to see whether there’s anything they can learn from you?

[laughs]

[laughs]