[天下] Can Hong Kong block Telegram? | 香港政府能封鎖Telegram嗎？
Can Hong Kong block Telegram?
In a committee meeting of the legislature of Hong Kong, the territory’s Privacy Commissioner made a comment on her dissatisfaction with “certain overseas platform” in its handling of requests to remove doxxing information. With these cases numbering “sometimes over 200 a week,” the commissioner said she would consider further actions to escalate.
And then, a local media leaked the platform in question to be Telegram, a popular messaging application. Right away, the Hong Kong public were asking, will the authorities block and ban Telegram? A whole host of pro-government legislators jumped at the opportunity to call for a blockage. And international media such as Bloomberg reported the news to the world as another example of Hong Kong’s recent draconian measures against freedom of expression.
To block or not to block? Blocking Telegram is easier said than done. Those in the tech sector will remind others of Russia’s attempt to do exactly that, and it failed. Can Hong Kong achieve what Russia couldn’t? In 2018, the Russian government demanded Telegram, which actually was founded originally as a Russian company, to provide its encryption key to officials, so that the government could try to monitor content on the platform. Telegram refused, and then the Russian government blocked the IP addresses used by Telegram.
There was just a problem — Telegram is not a website, but an Internet based application service. When Russia blocked those IP addresses used by Telegram on a dynamic basis, those other services or websites sharing the same common cloud platforms used were also affected. We are talking about popular global cloud platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Cloudflare. Those “accidental victims” that were blocked even allegedly included some of Russia’s government’s own websites.
Four years have passed, are there any new ways to block? Apparently not. The whole Internet today may actually be even more reliant on such cloud services. Indeed, in June, 2020, Russia actually “unblocked” Telegram. Most ironically, the Russian government was found to be using more and more of this messaging platform over the years, including official and legitimate services to citizens, as well as using it to spread disinformation.
Some people may ask, well, then, why can China do it? And not only Telegram, but a wide range of other websites and services. If they can, why can’t Russia and Hong Kong? The simple answer is that the Great Firewall of China — its notorious censorship mechanism — is based on a series of infrastructure and policy elements that most notably depended on having government agencies and state-owned telecom enterprises keeping absolute control over its Internet gateways to outside of the country, beginning from decades ago when the Internet infrastructure was built for China.
That was, and is, not the way in Russia or Hong Kong, and probably any other country in the world save a few like North Korea. It’s not as simple as passing a new law, or setting up a new piece of censorship software, to “become like China.” So, the other countries most likely will have to undertake a series of targeted means — technical, administrative and legal — to “handle” the content undesirable to their autocratic rulers.
So, all we can say is that, if Hong Kong wants to find a way to block Telegram, it probably won’t be easy, but no one can stop them from trying.
One may recall that back in 2019, during the season of anti-extradition bill protests, there were also news leaks from the Hong Kong government about how it was “seriously considering blocking Telegram.” Presumably because of the technical difficulties, that did not happen. However, late in that year, the government applied for, and was granted, a court injunction to prohibit anyone from “wilfully disseminating, circulating, publishing or re-publishing on any Internet-based platform or medium (including but not limited to LIHKG and Telegram) any materials or information for the purpose of promoting, encouraging or inciting the use or threat of violence, intended or likely to cause bodily injury or property damage unlawfully in Hong Kong.” Telegram, along with a local bulletin-board style platform LIHKG, were indeed singled out since two and a half years ago.
Since then, numerous Telegram group administrators have been arrested, charged and sentenced for a variety of charges of crimes. So if the authorities are still feeling that is not enough, and a technical blockage of Telegram may be difficult, then what can they do? The first possibility is to find an “excuse” to apply to the court for the two main mobile operating system platforms of Apple and Google to remove the Telegram app from their online stores. That way mobile phone users registered in Hong Kong will not be able to directly download and install the app, but users registered from other locations, as well as local users who already had the app on their phones or PCs, will still be able to use it.
But if the Hong Kong authorities do that, international reaction must be one of immediate and inevitable indignation, and almost guaranteed to draw the attention of western governments, with little practically meaningful effect to block. Is that worth it? In today’s Hong Kong, nobody can bet against the authorities’ irrationalities.
Some may suggest, why can’t Hong Kong legislate to ban Telegram altogether, so if anyone is found to have it on their phones or PCs, they can be fined or prosecuted. Possibly, in today’s completely submissive and obedient Hong Kong legislature formed after a “perfected” electoral reform, passage of such a law may not be a difficult task at all.
However, blocking certain applications, websites or even companies by naming them in the law is still somewhat unprecedented, and it may not be as easy as it sounds to define the scope of the blockage. I would rather point out that for authoritarian regimes, rather than banning a given list of services, they may prefer to set out a set of vague and broad criteria of what would be illegal, for highest flexibility and maximum reach, that is, similar to the injunction of 2019.
In the past week, conflicting news emerged such that, on the one hand, some media outlets reported that the authorities would seek guidance from China in order to adopt “the most vehement ways” to block Telegram, while other sources revealed that the authorities privately acknowledged the technical difficulties and were only raising the rhetoric to pressure Telegram to improve its compliance.
Well, no one can predict the future action of an irrational regime, but the fact remains that personal data protection and privacy protection by law in Hong Kong has been cornered into “anti-doxxing” alone, a rather disproportionate way of handling a matter of huge importance to citizens’ protection as well as a territory’s economic development.
Certainly doxxing is not to be condoned, but any attempt, legal or otherwise, to mitigate this issue may be done in balance of other important factors including freedoms of information and the media. Of course, in reality, such expectations are increasingly impractical and untimely for today’s Hong Kong.
What I found most “interesting” about the two sides of this discussion — the pro-Beijing faction calling for strict blockage of such foreign platforms, or the citizens concerned about losing yet another service for their day-to-day use — few seem to remember that even if Telegram is “successfully” blocked in Hong Kong, doxxing of these same targets will continue to carry on outside of Hong Kong. The “extraterritorial jurisdiction” put into Hong Kong’s privacy laws, including the doxxing related amendments passed in Hong Kong last September, are still very hard to enforce. Simply pushing doxxing out of sight in Hong Kong hardly solved the problem.
So the current controversy is also about the impracticality of extraterritorial jurisdiction of the law. The government and the legislature like to put this in all the digital-related laws, almost as a manifest of “digital sovereignty,” even though it is harder and harder to receive recognition for such jurisdiction right from regimes overseas, as Hong Kong becomes more and more isolated diplomatically and internationally. Will Hong Kong’s next step be to legislate to be able to forcibly hold foreign companies accountable for everything that happens outside of Hong Kong, resulting in a de facto eviction of more global companies from Hong Kong?
So, if we are to ask the question, what a Telegram block will mean for Hong Kong’s free flow of information and its role as a regional information center and commercial hub? I can only say that these past descriptions of Hong Kong’s role as a center and hub have been slipping farther and farther away in these two years. Hong Kong’s sharp decline indeed is a huge contrast to Taiwan’s digital economy development.
May Hong Kong also serve as a reminder for vigilance and a caution to how delicate and easy that freedoms can be stripped from a previously vibrant society.
Published: CommonWealth Insight on May 25 2022
https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=3233&from=search
香港政府能封鎖Telegram嗎？
最近聽說，香港私隱專員在一個立法會委員會上說，有些海外平台對香港「起底」的指令不夠合作，有時一個星期多達200多宗個案，會考慮如何處理。接著又有消息傳出，這個平台就是Telegram。一眾立法會議員自然爭相出來要求禁用。
然而，禁用Telegram，說易行難。科技界最直接的回應是：俄羅斯都不能，香港能嗎？
俄羅斯都不能禁用Telegram，香港能嗎？
2018年，俄羅斯政府要求Telegram這個由俄羅斯人創辦的社群媒體提供加密鑰匙，讓政府能審查平台上的內容。Telegram拒絕了，於是政府企圖把它的IP地址屏蔽，然而，Telegram是個應用程式，不是單一網站，俄羅斯政府要求網路供應商禁止所有相關IP地址，副作用就是令其他同時使用同一雲端服務的網站全都一起被屏蔽，不能登入。被波及的包括AWS、微軟，據說甚至還有俄羅斯政府自己的一些網站。
4年過去，有新的方法「解決」這個問題嗎？似乎沒有。整個網路世界比以前更依賴雲端服務，要避免屏蔽一個app帶來的副作用，可能只有更難。俄羅斯在2020年6月對Telegram「解禁」，而諷刺的是，在解禁前後，俄羅斯甚至加強利用Telegram，包括在上面散播假新聞。
有人會說，那麼，為什麼中國能禁？不只Telegram，還能禁止千千萬萬的不同網站和服務？簡單回答，中國的「防火長城」是以政府機關和國營企業完全控制網路對外的出入口，數十年來都禁止大型平台在國內運作，香港、俄羅斯的情況不是如此，也不是一朝一夕就可以變成中國的「國家全面控制」狀況。所以，他們只能用其他方法，針對性地禁止一些內容或服務，而這些做法在科技上限制較大，多數只能以行政手法對「問題」逐一處理。
所以，香港若想以技術方法全面禁用Telegram，大概不能輕易做到。
香港要起底、禁用Telegram又有困難：政府會怎麼做？
不過，沒有人能說他們不會嘗試。回想2019年也曾有消息傳出，香港政府曾經認真考慮禁止Telegram和連登討論區，不過當時可能因為技術限制，最後沒有發生。反而在當年10月底，當局採取了以律政司向法庭申請禁制令的方法，禁止任何人「故意在任何基於互聯網的平台或媒介上傳布、傳播、發布或重新發布任何目的在於促進、鼓勵或煽動使用或威脅使用暴力的材料或信息」，禁制令中更指明「包括但不限於LIHKG 連登和Telegram」。
兩年多來，不少曾經在Telegram經營群組的管理員，都因為各種罪名被控告，甚至定罪入獄。那麼，如果當局覺得起底還做得不夠，完全在境內禁用Telegram又有困難，還有什麼其他可能手段？
第一個可能性，就是找出法律上的方法，甚至向法庭申請，要求蘋果和Google兩大應用平台移除Telegram，讓在香港註冊的手機用戶不能下載。當然，已經下載應用的用戶、或者是註冊於其他地區的香港用戶還是可以繼續使用，或者透過電腦版本使用。而香港政府如果真的向蘋果和Google施壓，將在國際上引起極大迴響，也幾乎一定會引起美國政府的反應。這作用其實不大，不過，即使只是「為做而做」，今天也沒人敢能說香港政府不會這樣。
另一種可能是，香港政府可以直接立法禁用Telegram，只要發現有人手機或電腦上有此應用，都可以罰款、檢控。在今天香港「完善」的行政立法合作下，很多人會覺得如今什麼法都能立吧？不過，在法例上直接點名禁止一個應用程式、網站或公司，不容易找到先例，而且如何定義禁止的範圍，未必那麼容易。我認為對於專制政權而言，如果能禁，何必只禁一個或幾個應用程式？倒不如定出一些模糊的原則，把這些立法規範化。
我可以指出這些原則上的考慮，但不能也不會估計香港政府會怎做，因為這些年來，政府有過太多非理性的決定了。也有人問，現時私隱條例中反起底條文的懲罰，是否合符比例？我也很難回答。因為香港的私隱條例和執行部門的工作焦點，已經變成了「反起底專員公署」，本身就是不合符比例的法例。我當然不認同起底的行為，但對任何罪行的處理，都需要平衡對社會各方面的利益和需要，起底一事對資訊和傳媒自由的影響，必須充分考慮，不能一面倒、一刀切。不過，近年香港的趨勢，這些想法恐怕都不合時宜了。
在近日的討論中，我感到最有趣的是，無論是想找方法禁Telegram的建制派，或是擔心不能再使用Telegram的市民，都只在思考禁或不禁這件事，大家像是忘記了，就算香港禁了Telegram，其他的平台仍然存在；起底的行為，恐怕還是會在香港以外繼續；而香港法例中的所謂「境外執法權」，執行起來仍是極為困難，名存實無。難道把這些起底問題和內容推到境外，就當是「做了」？
這次關於Telegram的爭議，多少是因為去年修改後的私隱條例的反起底條文的境外執法權，說來容易，但實施執行的能力有限，這是強行立了不可能有效執行的法例的問題。如不承認這一點，也許下一章的劇本，就是繼續強行在香港追究所有境外平台的海外責任，有可能變相把他們迫離香港市場。
所以，如果有人要問，若是禁了Telegram，將會如何影響香港的資訊流通自由和香港作為區域資訊中心和商業中心的地位？我只可反問，香港還有、還是這些東西嗎？
香港人透過香港整體的傳媒和網絡自由所能享有的言論和表達自由，在過去兩年急速下降，已經是不爭的事實，與台灣相比，更能突顯出兩地對資訊自由和網絡發展所走的相反方向。台灣除了應利用機會發展由本土走出國際的數位經濟商機，亦須把香港引為戒鑒，失去資訊和網絡自由的代價非常高，不能讓社會走上這條路。
（作者曾任香港立法會資訊科技界議員，現任美國史丹福大學全球數位政策中心訪問學者。）
Published: 獨立評論 @天下 on May 21 2022
[FNF | 天下] Taiwan can be East Asia’s New Internet and Data Hub | 亞洲最新的網際網路及數據樞紐？台灣能！
Taiwan can be East Asia’s New Internet and Data Hub
In the second half of April, Taiwan scored two major wins in consolidating its regional and global positions in digital future and data trade within a week’s time, with relatively little fanfare or local attention. Is Taiwan on the verge of a golden opportunity to transform its economy, yet without its broader business, industrial and political communities knowing its own full potential?
On April 28, 2022, the United States and “sixty partners around the world” together launched the Declaration for the Future of the Internet. Taiwan was among these partners, which included the European Commission and governments from all over the world, and the U.S. itself. As the signatories of the declaration were in effect all governments, the diplomatic choice to use the word “partners” instead of “countries” was clearly made for including Taiwan.
As a matter of background information, the concept for an Alliance for the Future of the Internet was floated by the U.S. White House shortly before the end of 2021, and was intended to be announced at the Summit for Democracy in early December. However, the plan faced pushback from the digital rights as well as technology business communities and was criticised for being merely an extension of the Trump administration’s “Clean Network” initiative, for alliance member countries to pledge to “use only trustworthy providers” in core Internet infrastructure, which makes the alliance a “no-China” club but lacks focus for the global Internet to adhere to democratic, human rights and accessibility values. Civil societies and Internet companies also felt left out of the process and without a seat at the table.
Taiwan has a place in the future of the Internet
As a result, days before the Summit for Democracy was to commence, the announcement of the alliance was delayed, until now. The April 28 announcement of the declaration takes on somewhat of a looser form compared to an alliance of national and territorial governments. The declaration itself also adjusted its focus to a more principles-driven vision for the Internet based on human rights and fundamental freedoms including expression and pluralism, increased access and affordability, safety and privacy, fair competition, and a trusted and secure infrastructure. Also, likely as a response to the more recent “splinternet” controversy that arose out of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the declaration emphasised a global Internet and the need to refrain from shutdowns, blocking lawful content and services, and free data flows.
But the declaration is still significant in many ways, and may represent the prelude to a series of international lobbying in preparation for the important election of the next secretary general of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the technical body under the United Nations (U.N.) in charge of the world’s telecom standards and regulations, where a Russian candidate and and a U.S. candidate will face off later this year. With China and Russia “fully cooperating” to try not only to dominate the ITU but also to wrestle away global Internet governance from the multistakeholder ICANN to the ITU — and hence the hands of national governments — the signatories may represent one of the most visible actions to date to counter the efforts of China and Russia.
Even though Taiwan is not a member of the U.N. nor the ITU, the inclusion of Taiwan among the democratic allies and their effort to “reclaim the promise of the Internet,” as described in the declaration, is symbolic and significant. It is also important to note that, despite the U.S.’s emphasis on the Indo-Pacific region in recent years, the declaration was endorsed by relatively few Asia Pacific partners, with only Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Taiwan, and Pacific islands such as Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau, with major Asian countries and technology leaders such as India, South Korea and Singapore notably missing. That makes Taiwan stand out even more.
However, the news of Taiwan’s inclusion in the U.S.-led declaration apparently only received relatively limited press coverage in Taiwan, with the attention placed on digital minister Audrey Tang representing the government in the online signing ceremony with other global partners, repeating the rather plainly worded Ministry of Foreign Affairs press release and with little commentary or analysis on any of its importance.
A seat at the table in setting global data rules
Similarly, a week before the announcement of the Declaration for the Future of the Internet, Taiwan became a member of the Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) Forum, on April 21, 2022, along with Canada, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and the U.S., this time under the name of “Chinese Taipei.” In the statement from U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the Forum “intends to establish the Global Cross Border Privacy Rules and Privacy Recognition Processors (PRP) Systems, first-of-their-kind data privacy certifications that help companies demonstrate compliance with internationally recognised data privacy standards.” The “APEC CBPR” System will facilitate and establishment the framework for and promote mutual recognition and trusted international data flows.
Again, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs put out a press release, stating that its inclusion on the Forum will have a positive impact on “international cooperation on privacy protection and cross-border digital trade development.” Indeed, the potentials for Taiwan can go way beyond this general description.
In recent years, the U.S. and the E.U. have been embroiled in a longstanding dispute about data transfers, not the least because the E.U. has led by setting up very comprehensive privacy and data protection laws, while the U.S. has not. Recently in March 2022, however, the U.S. and E.U. finally entered into a data transfer agreement. Meanwhile, earlier in June, 2021, China’s Data Security Law also came into effect, enabling a comprehensive regulatory regime for its data and security governance, including data sovereignty and requirements for local storage, with a focus on national security. Data may be the new oil, but without the pipelines and the agreements on how to transfer and exchange these data, the full economic potentials will not be realised.
In Asia, there is no comprehensive region-wise data and privacy framework, like the E.U.’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the regulatory regimes in countries and territories can vary greatly, if they exist. The U.S.’s CBPR initiative is obviously an attempt to counter China’s influence and to take leadership to emphasise on data transfers and related business opportunities, while the Chinese regulations tends to focus more on forcing companies to keep data within China. As such, Taiwan can play a critical role.
Taiwan can fill the void left by Hong Kong
In recent years, Taiwan has made headways in its Internet infrastructure and established a respectable regional presence. Major U.S. technology giants such as Google and Meta have chosen Taiwan to host their regional datacenters, along with Singapore, but instead of Hong Kong. When Google and Meta jointly invested to build what would have been the first direct trans-Pacific undersea cable — the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) — between California and Hong Kong, and the U.S. government eventually refused to allow the PCLN to reach Hong Kong, Google and Meta had to revise their proposal to have the PCLN terminate in Taiwan instead in order to receive the license approval from the U.S. In the PLCN “national security agreement” between Google and Meta with the U.S. government, the investors agreed to “pursue diversification of interconnection points in Asia, including but not limited to Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam.” That could very well mean connecting to these countries from Taiwan.
In other words, Taiwan is poised to take over at least part of the role of the region’s telecommunications and Internet hub vacated by Hong Kong, as the latter’s position has been compromised since the implementation of the National Security Law from Beijing in 2020, and the subsequent political crackdowns, followed by various U.S. sanctions. While Taiwan will not be able to displace Hong Kong interconnection role into the mainland and the Greater Bay Area, it has a good chance of taking over some of the regional and international traffic and data flows in East and Southeast Asia, especially new growth in demands, because the non-China international capacity of Hong Kong will grow much more slowly than before, if at all, in the foreseeable future.
This may be a perfect opportunity for Taiwan to set its goal to become the regional Internet, data and technology service hub for East Asia, like Singapore for Southeast Asia. For years, Taiwan has been trying to diversify its industrial base and its reliance on the semiconductor, electronics and manufacturing sectors. Even though Taiwan’s prospects for its semiconductor industry still look great, it is always smarter to spread the eggs in more baskets during good times.
Next Steps for Taiwan - What should Taiwan do ?
I humbly suggest the following for Taiwan to upgrade its grand vision, soft infrastructure and skills base:
1. Establish Taiwan’s digital economy strategy, covering all aspects of government and industry digital transformation, attracting foreign investment and supporting research and development, as well as education and manpower development, and let the world know Taiwan is more than about semiconductor and electronics.
2. Update its legal and regulatory regimes on data and privacy protection as well as telecommunications with a view to liberalise and attract international investment and more data and services exchange with other Asia Pacific economies, and also to catch up with data and privacy regulations in Europe and other leading countries.
3. Double down on the effort to develop the telecommunications and Internet sector, leveraging on inroads already made in datacenters and infrastructure, attract more investment and expand regional connectivity and capacity with its East Asian neighbours such as Japan and South Korea, as well as the U.S.
4. Learn from the Singapore playbook and negotiate bilateral agreements on digital trade and data transfers with other countries, similar to Singapore’s proposed pact with the U.K. Again, as it is unlikely for Hong Kong to enter into data trade agreements with leading western economies in the near future, Taiwan is well placed to take over.
There is no need to abandon what Taiwan has been doing well, but this is the best chance for it to expand and diversify into new areas of economic growth, that would not only greatly benefit Taiwan but also offer the opportunities for its allies to help, support and bolster its regional strategic and economic importance. That can truly be a win-win situation.
Published: Friedrich Naumann Foundation, May 3 2022
https://www.freiheit.org/taiwan/taiwan-can-be-east-asias-new-internet-and-data-hub
German: https://www.freiheit.org/de/taiwan/taiwan-kann-ostasiens-neuer-internet-und-daten-hub-werden
Chinese: https://www.freiheit.org/zh/taiwan/yazhouzuixindewangjiwanglujishujuzhongxintaiwanchongmanqianli
Also published on CommonWealth Magazine, May 5 2022 (English)
https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=3219
亞洲最新的網際網路及數據樞紐？台灣能！
4月下旬，台灣在短短一星期內，連續簽署了兩項對數位未來影響深遠的重要國際協議。然而，本土的政經及工商界，是否看到台灣的潛力，和經濟轉型的黃金機會？
4月28日，美國白宮宣布與全球60個「伙伴」共同簽署「未來網際網路宣⾔」，包括台灣、歐盟各成員國等。
早於半年多前，當美國總統拜登政府還在籌備12月的線上民主峰會時，已計劃在峰會上宣布成立「未來網際網路聯盟」。然而消息一出，卻遭受各方質疑和批評。無論是數位人權組織或科技企業，都察覺到這個聯盟似乎只局限於川普總統時期的「乾淨網路計畫」（Clean Network），要求盟友保證在其網路基礎建設內只會使用可信的技術供應商。換句話說，除了籠統地承諾不使用來自中國的產品，這個聯盟並未聚焦網際網路發展的重要價值觀，包括民主、人權等；加上公民社會團體和網路企業都未能直接參與，私底下都表示不滿。
台灣於未來網際網路佔一席位
結果，聯盟在民主峰會舉行前數天被暫時擱置，現在則變身為宣言，雖然在觀感和實際上都被稍為「降格」，但宣言內容的確變得更以價值為本，明確宣示支持人權、言論等基本自由，以及多元、近用、安全、隱私、公平競爭、可信的基礎建設。另外，也許由於近期俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭，引發分裂和網路審查的爭議，宣言強調各國必須保障全球一致的網路，避免關閉網路或阻截合法內容服務，確保自由數據流通。
宣言的重要性，除了內容上的承諾，還在於簽署者對於全球網際網路治理的立場宣示。畢竟中國與俄羅斯已經在國際技術標準和網路治理上宣布「全面合作」，年底前將舉行的國際電信聯盟秘書長選舉，由美、俄兩國代表出選，兩陣正面交鋒；加上多年來中、俄兩國和其盟友對執掌網際網路治理的ICANN組織多番批評，企圖把治理權轉到以國家政府控制的國際電信聯盟。面對極權國家推銷的全方位治理審查模式，「未來網際網路宣⾔」為民主世界作出抗衡，共同踏出的重要一步。
台灣成為這個要「重奪網際網路的期許」宣言一分子，極具象徵意義及重要性。然而，即使美國過去多年以發展亞洲地區策略為目標，本宣言中的亞洲簽署者，除了台灣外只有澳洲、日本、紐西蘭，和三個太平洋小島國，一些重要的亞洲科技強國如印度、南韓和新加坡都未參與。以此角度看，台灣的重要性就更突出了。
不過，「未來網際網路宣⾔」在台灣似乎未得到太多重視，僅外交部發出新聞稿、媒體依稿報導，並由行政院政務委員唐鳳代表在線上出席宣言發布活動，未有更深入的分析。
台灣可進軍國際數據新經濟
在宣言發布前七天，台灣以創始會員身分加入由美國領導、美國商務部長Gina Raimondo宣布成立的「全球跨境隱私規則論壇」（Global Cross-Border Privacy Rules Forum，GCPR），成員包括加拿大、日本、菲律賓、新加坡、南韓、美國及台灣；而論壇的目的包括建立首個數據私隱認可機制，讓企業能藉以顯示自己已遵從國際數據私隱要求，便利各地互認機制，容許國際數據交換及轉移。
跨境數據轉移近年來成為美國與歐盟之間的長期爭議點。歐盟的隱私及數據保障法規成熟，而美國則頗為落後，甚至可說是真空。今年3月，美、歐才剛達成數據轉移的協議。另一邊廂，中國於2021年6月開始執行《數據安全法》，全面監管數據，尤其於數據上注入國家安全元素要求，令國際數據轉移更為複雜和困難。在國家單位面前，企業數據或個人資料的隱私更難以確保。
相比歐盟較成熟的數據隱私保障，亞洲各國的相關法律原則和條文都差距甚遠。因此，美國主導論壇的目的，是要在亞洲區內阻擋中國數據監管模式的影響和擴散，並爭取領導亞洲地區與數據相關的商業機會。再一次，台灣能在此佔有關鍵角色。
台灣接收香港對外樞紐的角色
近年來台灣於網際網路基礎建設有長足發展，美國龍頭科技企業谷歌和Meta都在台灣建立大型數據中心，與新加坡看齊，超越了香港。去年底美國當局正式批准由谷歌和Meta共同投資的跨太平洋海底電纜PLCN，終點從香港改為台灣，反映美國基於「國家安全」考慮，短期內可能不會批准任何有美國投資的海纜光纖接駁至香港。此消彼長下，台灣的網際網路樞紐地位得到重要支持。
事實上，美國政府與PLCN投資者達成的「國家安全協議」中，投資者同意以此基礎加強區內連繫，包括連接至印尼、菲律賓、泰國、新加坡及越南等，換言之，就是要台灣成為連接東南亞的樞紐。
自從香港於2020年實施《國家安全法》，面臨美國制裁、企業信心流失和營商環境急劇惡化，短期內實在難見轉機。即使台灣不可能取代香港對中國內地和鄰近大灣區的對內小樞紐地位，要挑戰香港的國際電訊及網際網路的對外大樞紐地位，尤其在新增容量及區域需求上，形勢甚佳。
因此，台灣正面臨發展成東亞地區國際數據及科技服務樞紐的最佳時機，有如東南亞地區的新加坡。台灣一直有意做經濟轉型，把現時以半導體、電子及工業行業帶動的科技經濟，發展得更多元化。台灣可以怎麼做？愚見認為，以下四點有助強化台灣的願景、提升基礎建設和人才技能：
構建台灣的數位經濟發展策略，推動全方位政府及工商業的數位轉型，引進外來對科技的投資，加強研發、教育及人才發展，並讓全世界都看到，台灣除了半導體、電子產業外，在網際網路產業以至數據經濟上，都在爭取成為區域樞紐。
更新數據和隱私在法律與監管架構上的保障，追上全球最先進的個資數據法律框架，並開放電訊規管，吸引國際投資，特別是亞太區域各國的合作和數據交易商機。
加強支援電訊及網際網路行業，在近年數據中心及網路基礎的發展上，擴展與其他東亞鄰近國家的連繫，特別是日本、南韓甚至美國等主要科技經濟體。
參考新加坡的策略，針對全球重要經濟強國成立數位貿易及數據轉移協議，例如新加坡與英國兩國建議中的協議。正因香港於可見的未來都無法與主要西方經濟體達成數位貿易的雙邊協議，機會將會傾向台灣這一方。
如果台灣能把握機會，利用數據新經濟創出發展新方向，不只能為己方帶動經濟新機，亦能在盟友國家協作和支援下，強化台灣於亞洲區內的策略性經濟地位，必然同時有助自身的地緣政治上的穩定。
（作者曾任香港立法會資訊科技界議員，現任美國史丹福大學全球數位政策中心訪問學者。）
Published: 獨立評論 @天下 on May 9 2022
