
Taiwan's new 'electronic fence' for quarantines leads wave of virus monitoring - imartin2k
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-taiwan-surveillanc-idUSKBN2170SK
======
lifeformed
I'm in Taiwan in day 6 of home quarantine right now. We get a call every
morning to check up on our health. I don't mind it, it's a simple and
effective method and it gives me confidence in the government and society,
knowing that everyone is taking the situation seriously. Once I'm out of
quarantine, I can feel comfortable being outside living a normal life, knowing
that all known potential carriers are contained.

~~~
bobbyd3
How did they get your information for the daily call? Just curious. Is
everyone required to submit contact information? Or did they already have the
required contact info for daily health checkups?

~~~
barkingcat
There is a national registry - if you have a birth certificate, if you have a
passport, if you file taxes, if you've used a government service (ever), if
you visited dentist/doctor at any point in your life, they have linked those
records.

If you are visitor and if they need to, within a few hours of landing at an
airport and arriving at your destination, you will get a phone call at your
destination location/hotel, etc if the government needs to find you -

Have you ever wondered why you fill out those landing / immigration cards that
they give you on the plane? For the US and Canada, those are only formalities.
For Taiwan, the cards get scanned in and then the authorities will call the
number you put on that card to see if you're there or if you've checked into
the hotel, for example.

In regular times, this system is mostly used for things like catching overseas
males dodging conscription for example, but the system is active already for
times like these when it's critical to know where a person has gone after they
leave the airport.

~~~
derefr
> the authorities will call the number you put on that card to see if you're
> there or if you've checked into the hotel

So... what happens when you’re _not_ there? I.e. if the government just can’t
find you? Does this then translate to a police APB or something?

~~~
frankacter
"My phone, which is satellite-tracked by the Taiwan gov to enforce quarantine,
ran out of battery at 7:30 AM. By 8:15, four different units called me. By
8:20, the police were knocking at my door."

[https://twitter.com/MiloHsieh/status/1241540231595044864?s=1...](https://twitter.com/MiloHsieh/status/1241540231595044864?s=19)

~~~
derefr
I meant in the case of a visitor to the country who hasn’t purchased a local
SIM yet, where the only contact information on the customs form is the hotel’s
front-desk number.

~~~
hailwren
They'd follow you from the airport. You could maybe evade if you were a
trained expert who looked like a local national, but otherwise they'd just
check CCTV (Taipei is covered in it) and follow your trail. I've never taken
public trans out of TPE, so they'd probably just call the cab company and
track you down that way. Otherwise, they would check the public trans cameras.

Also lack of local sim doesn't mean you aren't transmitting. It just means the
towers are choosing not to provide you with service. A SIM's only purpose is
to link your usage to a billing account and phone number.

~~~
derefr
> Also lack of local sim doesn't mean you aren't transmitting.

Yes and no. Airplane mode, turning your phone off, etc.

But also, even if your phone is pinging the tower with your device’s IMEI...
how would they know it’s _your_ phone’s IMEI? There’s no registry mapping
IMEIs to legal identities, in any country, AFAIK. _Carriers_ have that
information, but you wouldn’t have yet signed up with any Taiwanese carrier.
So the Taiwanese government could only get that information from a _foreign_
carrier.

(Yes, you _could_ plug all the tower pings into a graph DB and run Dynamic
Network Analysis to figure out what common unidentified IMEI matches the route
pattern you extracted from the CCTV data—but you’re expecting a lot here; that
hardly works even when you have tens of thousands of bits of evidence of e.g.
a crime ring; and that kind of analysis is one of the “slow checks”, like DNA
PCR assaying, that takes months to run— _especially_ if you’re having to go
process-of-elimination by adding everyone _else’s_ IMEIs into the graph to
find the “UFO” IMEI [which presumes that doesn’t also involve O(N) warrants
somehow. I’ll be nice and assume it doesn’t.] Add the fact that the only
people trained in Network Analysis will be in your country’s fraud squad, and
someone between Customs Enforcement and Fraud will have to come up with the
idea of getting the fraud people to use this technique outside of its usual
domain of application, and... not seeing it happening.)

Basically, for the Taiwanese government to know your phone’s IMEI, you would
have either had to tell them the IMEI on the customs form†; _or_ they would
have to ask your previous phone provider _in your country of origin_ what IMEI
_they_ last saw registered to your IMSI (in turn attached to the phone number
on your customs form); and then, _provided your domestic provider had any
reason at all to want to answer that question_ (they certainly wouldn’t be
_compelled_ to), _then_ the Taiwanese govt would be able to track you.

But that helps nothing if, again, you just provided the phone number of the
hotel you’re staying at as your “contact number” on the customs form, as they
ask you to. Then they’d need to take another step back and figure out _what
your cellular numbers in regular use_ are, given only your other details,
without even knowing what carriers you have relationships with in other
countries. (Sure, okay, look it up on LinkedIn. That works for a normal
person. I’m assuming a person motivated to hide here.)

It also helps nothing if you bought a new phone at any point between when you
last signed up for a SIM in your last country of known residence, and when you
showed up in Taiwan; and it _also_ helps nothing if you just set your phone to
spoof your IMEI. (IMEIs are like MAC addresses: a hardware-fused default with
a software-programmable override!)

† ...or they could read it off the millimeter-wave scan of your phone they
took at the airport, if they tune the scanner just so. That solves everything
for them except the IMEI spoofing, really.

~~~
barkingcat
This is probably thinking too high tech for some basic human int collection.
It's easy enough to collect imei numbers at a checkpoint. It's also easy
enough to find out from family members and friends and business connections
(everyone works for someone, has a family, and friends, and even if none,
there's always a bank account that paid for the airline ticket somewhere,
attached to a passport).

Think low tech. Taiwan didn't even have a computerized registry when I was
born, so everything was done by hand (I can confirm this because when I had to
look up my birth certificate, it wasn't in the records! and they had to look
up the records by hand - but the records exist and are easily findable by
humans)

also, don't neglect a simple phone call from the police to your boss - that's
a super easy way to find out what's going on. Especially for Western folks who
seem to be tied to their work.

~~~
derefr
> It's easy enough to collect imei numbers at a checkpoint.

True enough, I guess. Require that you turn all devices on, then either
require unlock and look at the IMEIs yourself, or pass the person through a
Stingray in an RFID cage.

But I would assume that if Taiwan _was_ doing that, people would notice
(requiring turning devices _on_ is a very unusual step) and would have
mentioned online somewhere that that’s something that happens when you visit
Taiwan.

Also, it still won’t help if this immigration-evader turned super-spy is
rolling their spoofed IMEI regularly.

(Also, where would they get the information on who your boss/company is? From
your customs form? That’s one of those things too expensive to verify for
every case ahead of time, so they won’t bother until they actually want to
find you; in other words, that’s one of those things that’s perfectly easy to
lie about. From your visa, presuming you need one? Information like that could
be entirely outdated by the time you visit.)

~~~
barkingcat
"Also, where would they get the information on who your boss/company is?"

They ask you at the customs checkpoint. Human intelligence collection is the
custom official's job. Even when coming through Canadian Customs border, they
do (and are able to) ask directly: who do you work for. What do you do? What
is your job? Do you have family here? Where do you live? How old are you?

Those are level 1 questions for crossing the border at pretty much any
country.

Driving through the Peace Arch border crossing into the US, I've been asked
all of those questions.

------
huangc10
Like other people are saying, there's definitely ways around this. The only
reason why Taiwan has been so successful in battling Coronavirus is that there
is national pride in acting as a whole and doing what's best for society.
There is huge shame to the family for people who defy. Taiwanese people
generally know what helps society and when to listen. It is the cultural
influence/mix of Chinese and Japanese governments which are deeply ingrained.
Source, I am Taiwanese.

~~~
landryraccoon
I don’t think it’s only culture and this just happened by itself. The
leadership of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) surely was a factor as well.

Culture works in conjunction with good policy and leadership. I would be wary
of attributing too much to the relatively immutable and hand-wavy notion of
culture.

~~~
autojoechen
Their VP is also an epidemiologist by training, a public health researcher,
and was the health minister during the SARS epidemic [0] so definitely seems
like the right person in the right job at the right time.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Chien-
jen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Chien-jen)

------
jordwest
Yuval Noah Harari (author of Sapiens) wrote a piece [1] on how we're now
facing a choice between authoritarian surveillance and citizen empowerment,
and how a decision made in this crisis could set the standard for the future.

[1]
[https://www.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcc...](https://www.ft.com/content/19d90308-6858-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75)

~~~
endymi0n
A fascinating counterpoint to this is the German government, who not just as
probably the first country did something distinctly different to quarantine
(it's called contact prohibition and you can go anywhere you like as long as
you don't meet with more than one person not from your household), but also
rejected mass cell phone surveillance plans by a large margin.

People here are mostly calm, cautious and despite a few outliers have largely
high compliance rates from everything I see on the streets.

More authoritarian governments have the clear upper hand in fighting COVID-19,
but I'm very curious how this will play out and if we can weather this
situation just as well as a free and privacy-sensitive liberal democracy.

~~~
onetimemanytime
>> _People here are mostly calm, cautious and despite a few outliers have
largely high compliance rates from everything I see on the streets._

Shouldn't the virus spread little by little so people gain immunity and the
hospitals can manage the number of patients? I doubt we can continue this
shutdown for 12-18 months (vaccine) and who knows if meds cure it.

~~~
imtringued
It is possible that immunity doesn't last forever. There could be a second
wave in the future.

------
bilal4hmed
Tracking like this has been one of the reasons for Singapores success to
curbing the virus.

[https://www.therakyatpost.com/2020/03/23/what-malaysia-
can-l...](https://www.therakyatpost.com/2020/03/23/what-malaysia-can-learn-
from-singapores-handling-of-covid-19/)

""If people don’t have symptoms, they’re put in home quarantine. And home
quarantine is very strict. A couple times a day, you’ll get an SMS and you
have to click on a link that will show where your phone is.

In case you cheat and leave your phone at home with someone else, the
government has people knocking on doors now and then. The penalties are pretty
harsh. ""

~~~
refurb
There was a Chinese person in Singapore who had PR and refused to follow the
quarantine order.

They took away his PR status.

~~~
cma
PR?

~~~
bilal4hmed
Permanent Residence

thats good. Rules are rules, especially in these times.

~~~
jlokier
That's terrible. PR is supposed to be "more or less a citizen, now stay for
long enough and you can become a citizen".

Not "we'll call it permanent but it doesn't mean anything".

Rules means justice and enforcement too.

You're not supposed to have a different justice system for people on PR than
for citizens. They should have jailed the person, if that's what they do to
citizens, or done whatever else they do to citizens who break the rules.

~~~
philliphaydon
Not at all. You still need to renew your PR status over time. It's only
permanent in the sense that if you are free to live in the country without
needing to be sponsored by someone (company or individual). It's still a visa
at the end of the day.

If you're on an EP / WP which is then cancelled you have 30 days to get a new
visa or leave the country.

PR != Citizenship in any shape or form.

~~~
jlokier
> PR != Citizenship in any shape or form.

Regular administrative renewal, yes, but aside from that, I guess my complaint
is that PR should resemble citizenship better, in matters of justice and in
other matters.

People live in PR status for an extraordinarily long time. Decades. Sometimes
their whole life after obtaining it.

Nobody should be have to live their lives in "second-class person, second-
class justice" mode for such a long time wihout being able to lay down roots.
It's not good for individuals and it's not good for society, and it's not
right.

The same applies to partners or spouses of citizens.

Generally if you're an immigrant partner or spouse of a citizen, you live a
second-class life, with second-class justice and second-class healthcare,
because you know everythig you have can be taken away by one bad domestic
argument. All it takes is uncertainty about a breakdown of the relationship
for you to be remainded that you can lose just arout everything you have and
value in life. So suck it up and be a good wife/husband, now fetch me my
dinner etc.

There should at least be reasonable time limits on such second-class status,
purely on moral and natural justice grounds.

~~~
philliphaydon
There is alot of negativity towards PR in Singapore because Citizens often
feel that PR get too many benefits that they never feel the need or want to
give up their own citizenship in favor of Singapore citizenship.

Alot of the benefits of PR have been taken away or reduced over the last 8
years that i've lived here.

------
RaoulP
I’m in precautionary quarantine in Taipei right now, after arriving from a
Level 3 country some days ago.

As a tourist, I had to provide a phone number of a contact person in Taiwan
upon my arrival. They call the number and confirm it works before you even
leave the CDC checkpoint at the airport. You also self report your health
condition. I then stood in line for 4 hours to get a special taxi to my place
of quarantine. Taking public transport is forbidden. Before finally getting
into the taxi, I was sprayed all over (including the bottom of my shoes) with
with I presume was disinfectant.

I was later requested to add a police officer on the social media platform
Line, through which I’m now asked daily how I’m feeling, and offered help if I
need anything. However I don’t think they can track my position through it.

There’s a stall selling cheap SIM cards for tourists at the airport, but it’s
past the CDC checkpoint, so no tourist has a local number to provide. Perhaps
they should move it upstream (and just provide the cards for free), if they
want this “electronic fence” to be watertight. I’m not sure but I think I
could technically go wherever I pleased right now.

~~~
bogomipz
I'm curious as a tourist what happens if you don't have a local contact? What
happens if one has nothing but a hotel booking for accommodation instead of a
home? I'm guessing that wasn't your case but were there others you heard or
saw who were just regular tourists?

~~~
RaoulP
Actually my local contact was simply my Airbnb host. I had arranged the Airbnb
only earlier that day, In response to the new travel restriction.

Other passengers provided the number of their hotel. The CDC called the hotel
and (I believe) checked whether they were aware that these passengers were
about to self-quarantine there.

Edit: even if you arrived without having anything booked at all, you can pay
to stay at a designated quarantine hotel, though that is more expensive.

Also note that Taiwan doesn’t grant the “visa exemption” usually granted to
tourists, when they now arrive from countries assessed as level 3 (requiring
home quarantine). I was able to enter during a short window of time where home
quarantine was instated but the new visa rules were not yet in effect. So I
think it isn’t usual for the situation you described to occur.

~~~
bogomipz
I'm curious were you traveling around Asia anyway and decided to visit Taiwan
due to the Coronavirus being very contained there? Are you seeing lots of
other travelers? Is your plan to wait it out there if so? It doesn't seem like
a bad place to be right now.

------
dmix
> Quarantine violators can be fined up to T$1 million ($32,955).

Today Taiwan fined a guy $33k USD for breaking quarantine by going to a
nightclub (not a positive COVID case just a mandatory isolation due to
travelling):

[https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/heavy-fine-for-taiwan-man-
for-...](https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/heavy-fine-for-taiwan-man-for-breaking-
quarantine/)

They aren't joking about the fines.

~~~
alainchabat
small correction: NTD$100,000 (usd$32,955)

Taiwanese Dollars isn't that shitty (yet)

~~~
thatsnice
US$1 ~ 30.2NT so the original numbers seem correct.

------
sailfast
Why would such a mechanism of control incentivize those that feel sick to
report their symptoms? Why would one submit to control at this level?

This sound similar to ankle-bracelet-level Parole / house arrest structures.
In fact, I'd prefer that because it would only be providing a single source of
sensor data to the government instead of possibly making my entire phone and
location history accessible.

~~~
alkonaut
It works well enough if everyone considers the best of their society as more
important than their own freedoms. So it's pretty easy to extrapolate where
this might work and where it would be fruitless.

~~~
rootusrootus
The libertarian types who think the gov't shouldn't exercise this kind of
authoritarian power also think their plan is the best for society.

~~~
vidarh
As a "libertarian type" well out on the left, I see the simple resolution to
this that if you're prepared to risk the health of others, you're free to do
that as long as you do it with other consenting adults apart from the rest of
us, and expect not to be allowed contact with the rest of us until its safe.

Freedom for everyone also means freedom for people to band together and decide
not to want anything to do with those who don't want to follow their rules.

Especially in this case, where the health risk arguably makes it aggression to
try to force contact on others.

------
notRobot
> The system monitors phone signals to alert police and local officials if
> those in home quarantine move away from their address or turn off their
> phones. Jyan said authorities will contact or visit those who trigger an
> alert within 15 minutes.

> Officials also call twice a day to ensure people don’t avoid tracking by
> leaving their phones at home.

I'd hate this so much. I get why they feel it's necessary, I do. But I still
absolutely hate this.

I hope stuff like this doesn't get nomralized. Especially in other non-first-
world countries

~~~
ShorsHammer
People love it. The amazing shift in online rhetoric that praises
authoritarianism is scary.

Imagine this being rolled out for the flu.

~~~
vkou
If the flu caused the kind of havoc to our medical systems that COVID is
causing, I'd want this rolled out for the flu, too.

~~~
dekhn
flu already was wreaking massive havoc, it's just a cost we've internalized.
Like driving.

~~~
chillacy
Part of that is having the hospital capacity for seasonal flu and accident
victims. We're prepared for that. Coronavirus adding more cases will soon
overwhelm hospitals in major US cities, at which point they will have to start
triaging patients like they are in Italy.

Presumably if this became the new norm then we would up our hospital capacity
to match and then re-adjust our life expectancy numbers as well.

~~~
dekhn
we don't have the hospital capacity for seasonal flu victims.

~~~
chillacy
By capacity I mean during flu season we don't run out of hospital beds when
people with serious flu complications need them.

By that definition then "not having capacity" means that people who go to the
ER have to get turned away based on medical triaging.

~~~
dekhn
Hospitals often have to set up tents in parking lots to deal with flu cases
when the influx is much higher than average. We don't provision for peak flu;
we provision for something less than the flu average.

------
mmhsieh
Taiwan doing this = effective. china doing this = creepy. however, probably
necessary in both cases. perhaps a rhetorical cease-fire globally would
benefit us all.

~~~
twomoretime
One of those countries is an authoritarian "communist" state with a well oiled
dissent suppression machine.

~~~
dang
Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic or ideological
flamewar.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
bernardtapis
Taiwan is trying really hard to attract foreign talents to boost their
economy. If you're interested, check their Golden Card Permit. It's a
visa+redisent card allowing you to stay and work for anyone there up to
3years. The only requirement is to justify of a an average salary of 160k
NTD/month(~USD 5210/month), anywhere in the world. If you don't earn that, try
the skills application[1]. I'll not talk about all the positive things about
Taiwan, just read the other comments.

[1]
[https://foreigntalentact.ndc.gov.tw/en/cp.aspx?n=128B875DE9C...](https://foreigntalentact.ndc.gov.tw/en/cp.aspx?n=128B875DE9CBEBE3&s=0FCDB188C74F69A0)

------
Animats
I wish we had that in the US. We're about to begin the Great Dieoff.[1] That
chart now updates every day at the URL, and is worth following.

[1] [https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest](https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-
latest)

------
jb775
> the system has drawn few [privacy] complaints in Taiwan

Yeah until after the coronavirus craziness is over and the (now tested) system
is used by China to round up dissenters

~~~
knolax
You know this is an article about Taiwan right?

~~~
jb775
Look up the history of Taiwan and China.

~~~
jshevek
Are you implying that China would hack the Taiwanese system and use the data
to somehow identify dissenters within mainland China?

~~~
jb775
No I'm implying that China probably already has a backdoor built into this
system and could strategically use it to further their Taiwan -control agenda.

~~~
jshevek
> _is used by China to round up dissenters_

Where are these dissenters? China, Taiwan, or elsewhere?

------
qwerty456127
I wouldn't feel comfortable being stripped of the right to have no phone.

~~~
flyt
Then don't travel to Taiwan for a few months.

~~~
qwerty456127
What about the rest of the time? Is it easy to live without a phone in Taiwan?
Can you buy a non-locked phone and a prepaid SIM card anonymously?

~~~
robjan
Only if it's an a SIM purchased from abroad. You need to produce a form of
national ID if you want to purchase a SIM in Taiwan.

------
alkonaut
It's good that everyone sees and learns what these systems are and what they
can be used for. Hopefully everyone can figure out what they can be used for,
if used for the wrong purposes.

------
lwansbrough
Good thing phones are embedded into us and can't simply be left at home.

Joking aside, and I suppose privacy concerns aside, this measure is better
than nothing and is also less draconian than the physical enforcement by
police that was seen in mainland China.

~~~
lanewinfield
Fifth paragraph: "Officials also call twice a day to ensure people don’t avoid
tracking by leaving their phones at home."

~~~
jiveturkey
good thing phone forwarding isn't a thing

~~~
mattkrause
The threat here is more "I'll just run to the store real quick; nobody will
even know" than "We need to thwart determined criminal masterminds."

~~~
jiveturkey
yes, of course.

i was just responding in the tone of the thread

------
RohitLakh
I just want that this COVID-19 phase pass out and all the people to be cured.
Doctors from all over the world are working for the cure and hope they find
it!

------
darepublic
Kind of incredulous seeing how many people are ready to forfeit all their
freedoms so willingly. Simply can't wait for the government to keep us safe in
our electric pens.

~~~
thatsnice
In Taiwan, shops / restaurants are open as normal and people are walking
around freely, other than the tiny percent in quarantine. Meanwhile Europe and
the US are increasingly locked down. So which one has more freedom?

------
jordache
american exceptionalism! lol

------
friedman23
> which has reported only reported 108 cases of the virus

absolutely amazing

~~~
martinpw
According to this site it is 215 now (March 23):

[https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/](https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/)

This is just 3 days after the publication of the Reuters article, so it seems
like it may be growing at similar rates to elsewhere (doubling every 3 days),
just from a low base?

