Councilor Concerned About 1999 Personal Info 1999熱線供廠商做資料分析 遭疑個資外洩

A Taipei City councilor accused the city's 1999 citizen hotline of providing recordings of city residents to third-party manufacturers for data analysis in two speech recognition evaluation projects. In response, the city government said there were no violations of the Personal Data Protection Act but it will review the contracts.

Taipei residents can call the 1999 citizen hotline to ask about transport options or complain about garbage, noise, or pollution. However, they may not know that recordings of their conversations may be provided to third parties. Taipei City Councilor Miao Po-ya recently accused the city government of providing third-party manufacturers with voice recordings and without prior permission for AI speech recognition analysis. The city government responded this is within its authority.

Miao Po-ya, Taipei City Councilor: “The explanation is that they're training robots in speech recognition, and they might not actually include people's recordings for analysis. If you can use this to explain your legal authority, then in the future all the personal information residents give to the city government can be provided to external third-party manufacturers using the same method.”

Miao said voice recordings involve voiceprints, which are similar to biometric identifiers such as fingerprints or irises. Even if names are redacted, there is no way to ensure there are no identifying properties before they are provided to manufacturers. According to the contracts, the analyzed intellectual property rights belong to the manufacturers, and there are no penalties if they abuse them.

Chen Hui-min, Spokesperson, Dept. of Info. Technology, Taipei City: “Government agencies are working on a 1999 speech recognition collaboration that is within the scope of its authority. It complies with Article 16-2 and Article 16-5 of the Personal Data Protection Act, as well as the provisions on the exemption of the obligation to inform in Article 8-2 and Article 9-2.”

So far, 1,400 voiceprints have been given to manufacturers for analysis. Miao said the trial program should be suspended and an exit mechanism should be set up. The city's Department of Information Technology responded the project targets the most frequently appearing phrases in files, and does not analyze individual files. It will reassess whether there are violations of the Personal Data Protection Act as well as its contracts.

舉凡交通運輸、垃圾噪音污染等問題，台北市民都可打1999登錄陳情，不過民眾並不曉得，自己打1999陳情之後，語音還可能會提供給市府以外的第三方單位，台北市議員苗博雅指出，北市府未經民眾同意，便將錄音檔提供給第三方廠商，進行AI語音辨識分析，市府表示此為法定職權，但苗博雅不這樣認為。

台北市議員苗博雅表示：「把語音機器人辨識訓練好，或者是他其實也不包括說，要能夠把民眾的錄音做分析，所以如果這樣可以解釋為法定職權，那很抱歉，以後所有市民交給市府的個資，都可以用同樣的模式提供給第三方外部的廠商。」

苗博雅表示，語音錄音牽涉到聲紋，跟人的指紋和虹膜等這些生物特徵有類似的性質，就算人名個資遮住，也沒有辦法像市府說的真正去識別化再提供給廠商，而且根據合約資料，分析的智慧財產權成果歸屬廠商，廠商如果濫用也沒有罰則。

台北市資訊局副局長兼發言人陳慧敏說：「公務機關在法令職權範圍內，去做一個1999的語音辨識合作案，是符合個資保護法第16條第2款及第5款，也符合第8條第二款，及第九條第二項的一個免告知範圍。」

目前已經有超過1400筆市民聲紋個資轉交廠商分析，苗博雅要求暫停試辦，並設定退出機制，資訊局對此回應，專案內容是擷取民眾聲檔中最常出現的詞彙，並不是針對個別音檔作分析，此案將對個資部分再行評估，也將對契約內容檢討改善。