According to the Digital Convergence Policy Initiative (2010-2015) as guidelines for the development of telecommunication, after a long run of ambitious regulatory reform the National Communications Commission (NCC) officially released its legislative proposal on five new laws to replace the existing laws.

Telecommunications Act, Radio and Television Act, Cable Radio and Television Act, and Satellite Broadcasting Act. But the draft laws have yet to be finalized, they are pending review with the Executive Yuan, as the NCC continues to hold public hearing to consult the relevant government agencies and public to ensure that the process is fine tuned and they are expected to complete submission at the end of April 2016 for further consideration.

Practically speaking, NCC follows the experience of EU and USA of digital convergence administration legal system by balancing convergence regulations, built up hierarchical management system, encouraging competition of the telecom and broadcasting industries, and enhancing the resources management. As new structure of draft laws change, the existing Telecommunications Act will split into two separate statutes–the Telecommunications Business Act and the Law Governing Telecommunications Infrastructure and Resource Management. They will liberalize the communications service market and removes entry barriers to further investment in both basic and enhanced services. They will exclude the limit regulation of the investment of military and political party. But military and political party will still be limited by budget act or the political party bill.

The other three draft laws are including Electronic Communication Act, Statues for Service of Multi-Channel Cable Platform Administration, and Statues for Business of Broadcasting and Frequency Administration. In future, Television and radio stations will be categorized as telecommunications platform providers that carry content subject which has approved and licensed by NCC. The NCC will clarify that the new proposal does not suggest any business separation or entity spin-off of existing telecommunications carriers and licensed operators; nor will the NCC require more licenses and prior approvals for emerging communications services. In sum, all five new draft bills will significantly improved the previous broadcasting legislation and let the telecommunications and media industry can be real "convergence".

On January 13th, the Executive Yuan launched another program to promote smart cities in 2016. As part of an effort to develop smart industries in Taiwan, the Executive Yuan has implemented the Intelligent Green Building Promotion Program (2010-2015), that utilizes Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) to create a smart and green-living environment that aims at spurring investment and development from the construction and traditional industries. The‘Intelligent Green Building’ concept is one that seeks to integrate green building design and intelligent technology together, an ever developing global trend. Furthermore, it is also one of the four innovative intelligent industries strongly endorsed by the R.O.C. government at this stage.

The major tasks of the program involve:
1. Promoting intelligent design for newly-constructed buildings and intelligent renovation for existing buildings.
2. Subsidizing projects in energy efficiency building improvement and renovation.
3. Conducting of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) assessments for relevant energy efficiency building improvement projects.
4. Strengthening the evaluation and certification process of the Green Building Label, Intelligent Building Label, and Green Building Material Label.
5. Implementing the Green Convenience Store certification and other certification standard projects.
6. Promoting green building efficiency awareness through specific educational programs and training workshops .

The tasks listed above aims to effectively carry out intelligent green building concepts to further enhance building energy efficiency and IEQ, so as to significantly reduce environmental impacts of buildings.

Measures adopted under the program includes the improvement of building energy efficiency through employment of green technologies; incentivizing businesses to save energy and water; promotion of standardized rating system for green convenience stores, and the issuing of green certification logos for factories. As of June 2015, the project had spurred investments reaching NT$67.6 billion (US$2.2 billion), generated a production value of NT$937.6 billion (US$30.1 billion), help reduced carbon emissions by 4.61 million tonnes and created more than 297,000 jobs—all of which has outperformed the original set-out targets.

Aspiring to turn both urban and rural areas into smart cities, the Executive Yuan is planning to launch another program in 2016 to further promote sustainable and intelligent cities. This new program will continue its focus on further upgrading green buildings and creating smart communities that seeks to transform Taiwan into a much more sustainable and intelligent living environment.

Government agencies have joined forces to create an integrated “food cloud” application that quickly alerts authorities to food safety risks and allows for faster tracing of products and ingredients. The effort to create the cloud was spearheaded by the Executive Yuan’s Office of Food Safety under the leadership of Vice Premier Chang San-Cheng in January 12, 2016.

The “food cloud” application links five core systems (registration, tracing, reporting, testing and inspection) from the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) with eight systems from the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Education (MOE), Council of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Administration.

The application gathers shares and analyzes information in a methodical and systematic manner by employing big data technology. To ensure the data can flow properly across different agencies, the Office of Food Safety came up with several products not intended for human consumption and had the MOHW simulate the flow of those products under import, sale and supply chain distribution scenarios. The interministerial interface successfully analyzed the data and generated lists of food risks to help investigators focus on suspicious companies.

Based on these simulation results, the MOHW on September 2, 2015 established a food and drug intelligence center as a mechanism for managing food safety risks and crises on the national level. The technologies for big data management and mega data analysis will enable authorities to better manage food sources and protect consumer health.

In addition, food cloud systems established by individual government agencies are producing early results. The MOE, for instance, rolled out a school food ingredient registration platform in 2014, and by 2015 had implemented the system across 22 countries and cities at 6,000 schools supplying lunches for 4.5 million students. This platform, which made school lunch ingredients completely transparent, received the 2015 eAsia Award as international recognition for the use of information technology in ensuring food safety..

Abstract:

Given its importance and potential, as well as the potential privacy concerns that it can raise, Big Data has been the recipient of a tremendous amount of attention from both industry groups and policymakers. This Article focuses upon the status quo and latest trends of the regulation and policies of Big Data in the United States, including the Big Data Report released by the White House in 2014, Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights Act of 2015, Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act of 2015, the Big Data and Differential Pricing Report released by the White House in 2015, Data Broker Accountability and Transparency Act of 2015. Through the lens of the current legislation and regulation framework of the United States, this article put the corresponding legislation of Taiwan under preliminary examination and shows possible direction for the future.

Keywords: Big Data, Information Privacy, Differential Pricing, Data Broker, Consumer Protection, Federal Trade Commission

<Source: Tzu-Hsiung Wang, Regulation of Big Data in the United States and Some Comments to Taiwan's Legislation, Science and Technology Law Review Vol. 28 No. 2, Febuary 2015 p.p. 30-52>

Abstract:

After Strategy for American Innovation first issued in 2009, the Administration is unveiling an updated version in 2015 to provide an overview of Administration efforts to ensure America continues to lead as the world's most innovative economy, to develop the industries of the future, and to harness innovation to help address America's most important challenges. By the way, the legislation of Congress for the Strategy keeps on going, example of America COMPETES Reauthorization Act and STEM Education Act. Those legislations concern about 2016's R&D budget and try to integrate government R&D resources and policy tool (e.g. R&D tax relief) to makes the case for the key innovation investments to advance the important emerging technologies it identifies and forge the public sector and private sector into the R&D system.

In sum, the science & technology policy and important legislation of Strategy for American Innovation focus on innovation capability of private sector because of America' entrepreneurs has long produced a cascade of important innovations. Thus government plays essential roles through public investments that businesses rely on but do not themselves create. Educational investments and workforce training provide the essential building block - a capable workforce - from which new ideas come and through which good ideas spread. Infrastructure investments, including physical and information infrastructure, connect the markets, creating attractive scale for innovation and allowing best practices to diffuse. To that end, the Administration take appropriate public action by supporting an environment in which innovation is rewarded and best practices are diffused, investing in a technically capable workforce, supporting basic scientific discoveries, and promoting the development of the technology platforms.

Keywords: Strategy for American Innovation、America COMPETES Reauthorization Act、STEM Education Act、R&D Tax Relief

<Source: Kuan-Yu Lin, Observing Science & Technology Policy and Important Legislation of Strategy for American Innovation, Science and Technology Law Review Vol. 28 No. 2, Febuary 2015 p.p. 53-72>