This is Part 6 of this article. Read the last part here: Part 57.(3).4 Data Platform
Let’s talk about another Taiwan system: The real-time-message-contact system, which is a system that allows users to scan QR codes of stores when they go to a store, and send messages of location information to the Central Epidemic Command Center, so infectors’ footprints can be recorded in the government’s database. An article in The Storm Media points out a problem with Taiwan’s real-time message-contact system. It says, “When the local health bureau wanted to use the SMS database, the Central Epidemic Command Center said that the SMS database was huge and the use of the database was still under discussion! Simply put, congratulations to the Taiwanese for spending $800 million of their tax money to build an SMS database that can only be used for watching! I remember earlier this year, the Central Epidemic Command Center illegally used “SkyNet” to uncover several self-managed citizens at New Year’s Eve concerts in various counties and cities……Where is the legal source of its use? The Tsai administration has not responded so far! [1]https://www.storm.mg/article/3797254 ”
Ok, the so-called “SkyNet” in Taiwan is another system named “Electronic Fencing System”, which is different from the real-time-message-contact system. I will discuss the real-time message-contact system and the issue related to this system mentioned in the above quote first. The “Skynet” will be discussed in later paragraphs.
7.(3).4.1 The real-time-message-contact system
7.(3).4.1.1 Problem: The slow speed of the epidemic investigation
Start from what the complaint of the slow speed of the epidemic investigation is about.
A legislator, Ms. Wang, pointed out that 16 counties and cities used only 303 items of the data from the system in one and half months, according to the data of the Central Epidemic Command Center. She indicated that there was a case at the end of May, and the infected woman was confirmed to be in serious condition and was admitted to the hospital in a coma and intubated. The infected woman was therefore unable to cooperate with the inquiry for the epidemic investigation and wanted to use the SMS system. The local institution wanted to get data from the message system, but when it asked the Central Epidemic Command Center about it, it got a reply that “the data in the system is huge, and it is still under discussion about how to use it for epidemic investigation, so there are difficulties in using it. [2]https://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20210701001128-260407?chdtv .”
The slow speed of the epidemic investigation is indeed a problem. A Taiwanese who read the news, run a test himself, and found that he can get the result of 1 million data in a few seconds, even with bad software Access. He said, “According to the data published previously, there are 500 million messages in 28 days. The average number of messages per day is 17.67 million. The data only needs to be stored for 28 days, so let’s store data separately in 28 tables…I randomly generate 1 million of data. Either with SQL server or the worst Access, the result is out in a few seconds. I found 56 identified potential contacts [3]https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Gossiping/M.1625333618.A.B93.html [4]https://www.ettoday.net/amp/amp_news.php7?news_id=2022225 .”
Based on the test result of this Taiwanese, it’s true that the epidemic investigation based on the database of the real-time message-contact system is too slow. Assume it took 10 seconds to get the results out of 1 million data, 18 million of data only need 180 seconds to get a result.
There were some doubts in the reply section of this article, but the Taiwanese who run the test all answered quite well and reasonably. I agree with many of his replies in the article.
Question 1: Some data are scattered in different telecommunication companies.
He said, “This is not an excuse. A user can send information out through the system. Can’t the government gather at one table? Or the government can just give me 10 million; I can ride a motorcycle every day to the major telecommunications companies, get copies back, put them in my laptop, and store them on one single table.”
Question 2: “The skill of database shouldn’t be difficult, but get data integrated – that should be the major problem”, “Getting data is easy. Interpretation and application is another thing.”
He replied to another similar doubt, “Getting the data out for local governments to do the epidemic investigations, rather than not even getting data out. Don’t even find a bunch of reasons to shift the blame to the huge amount of data. “
Question 3: The point is that this shouldn’t be the result of spending 800 million. But the technical part is not that simple.
He said, “Don’t talk about other things. 17 million of data a day is a very simple thing. I have made it, but you still can keep making yourself bfooled by a ghost and hitting the wall ( A Taiwanese proverb of saying “going in circles”) by keeping saying that the thing is not that simple.”
I agree with him. Though I agree that this shouldn’t be the result of spending 800 million, the man already proved that the technical difficulty is low by running a test himself [5]https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Gossiping/M.1625333618.A.B93.html [6]https://www.ettoday.net/amp/amp_news.php7?news_id=2022225
The media reported the article about the man who ran the test. However, there is no legislator who read the news and the article including the reply section comes out to question Audrey Tang with this article, the IT governor who is responsible for this message system. I urge that legislators proactively step up and question Audrey Tang or any governor when there is already some evidence that needs to be answered. Media should also proactively interview technology experts in the field about their opinions, which is a common practice in Western media, not every time it’s some average Taiwanese who voluntarily speaks out and the media just copy the articles. Likewise, technology experts should also proactively and publicly speak out on social media. What the man did are using some fundamental skills in data processing that many people who know SQL can do, so you should be able to speak out whether this job is difficult or not. If you know SQL but can’t do it, which is just about some fundamental commands, I don’t know why you can be called a “technology” expert. People have been cheated by you, haven’t they?
Anyway, the point is that the speed of the epidemic investigation based on the message system is indeed slow. I think the government has to answer this doubt. Let me teach you how to answer it.
If it’s indeed the case that the development team doesn’t possess such a fundamental skill, just admit it, apologize, and promise improvements will be made.
If there are other problems making it difficult to do epidemic investigations, just explain them to the public. But if that’s the case, why did the Central Epidemic Command Center say it’s because the amount of data is too huge? Doesn’t this explanation look like using the amount of data is too huge as an excuse? In addition, this reason should come out from the government first, not from the public who proactively thinks maybe this is the case, such as those people who said “Integration or interpretation is a different thing”. The government didn’t say it was the reason. Don’t try to find a possible reason for them. If this was never the reason, the reason you find can become the government’s excuse. In fact, since the government didn’t say it’s the case, it’s highly possible that the reason is just as what they think “the amount of data is huge”, so the actual root cause is that the development team doesn’t possess such a fundamental skill, isn’t it? Not only the government’s case, but so many other cases happening in Taiwan which people find some possible reasons for someone who never says that is the reason. In some cases, you are helping them find excuses. In other cases, they don’t express the reasons for problems clearly – that’s their problem. Shouldn’t they express the problems clearly? Why do you help the problem makers who don’t even express themselves clearly?
Let’s talk about the possibility that some Taiwanese have speculated: Data after being technically processed is still difficult to deal with. Nevertheless, if that’s the case, shouldn’t the central center speak clearly about the difficulty lies in which aspects, and it’s because those aspects need to deal with data pulled out after technical jobs are done, other than the technical aspect’s problems? Just say “a huge amount of data”, how would we know that it’s about problems other than the technical aspect, not to mention it’s easy to cause misunderstanding that it’s about the technical aspect? So many Taiwanese, no matter whether it’s a governor or an average Taiwanese, have such a problem: Not speak clearly. Just speak a few words of their points. It’s okay to speak both concisely and comprehensively, but no matter how concise you speak, you need to both express clearly and express everything that needs to be expressed. Many Taiwanese don’t make it.
Ok, though the central center didn’t provide detailed reasons, let me provide my answer to one of the other possibilities: Data after being technically processed are still huge. Data after being technically processed are still huge? Let me teach you, that one of the excuses that can be exploited for this reason is that local governments need to deal with not only 18 million of data – the amount of data per day, but also 500 million data – the amount of data in 28 days, as an infector could go out many days. Nevertheless, the answer to this excuse is that the man who ran the test and get a result of 1 million data in a few seconds is still evidence that the speed of the epidemic investigation shouldn’t be that slow.
First, assume it took 10 seconds to get the results out of 1 million data, 18 million data per day only needs 180 seconds to get a result. 500 million of data in 28 days also only needs 5040 seconds, which is only 84 minutes.
Second, it is just as what the man who ran the test said: “Getting the data out for local governments to do the epidemic investigations, rather than not even getting data out”. According to the data that the legislator Ms. Wang pointed out, there are only 303 items of data from the system were used in one and a half months. If the development team indeed get the data out but it’s about the amount of data which were pulled out is still huge, there shouldn’t only be 303 items of the data from the system that were used in one and half month. Local governments should be busy with doing detailed epidemic investigations with a mass amount of data to find out actual identified potential contacts.
Third, according to the case that the legislator Ms. Wang pointed out, the woman in the case was in a coma so she couldn’t provide her footprints. When the local institution wanted to get data from the message system and asked the Central Epidemic Command Center about it, it got a reply that “the data in the system is huge, and it is still under discussion about how to use it for epidemic investigation”. This case further proves that the central center didn’t even specifically get the data of this case out to serve this special case which can’t provide footprints on her own. It’s still possible that it’s simply because of “the problem of technical processing due to a large amount of data”, which means the development team doesn’t even possess fundamental skills for getting relevant data out. Who knows if the team is really able to get relevant data out of the mass data? I don’t know.
Ok, even if it’s really because relevant data after being technically processed would be still huge. Since there is already an article that pointed out that it won’t take a long time to technically process a huge amount of data (The article in the earlier paragraphs that is about a Taiwanese running a test himself ), it is back to the problem: The government should explain to the public after the article became popular that the data after being technically processed are still huge, but it didn’t. However, from my point of view, if it’s really the case – data after being technically processed are still huge, given that the woman in the case was already in a coma and thus unable to provide her footprint on her own, the government should still get the huge amount of data related to this woman out to the local health bureau because this case is special – she couldn’t provide her footprint on her own. As the government didn’t explain after the article on running a test became popular that the data after being technically processed are still huge, no one knows what the problem is. Let me point out what the problem is here: Lack of adaptability, as the government didn’t adapt according to a special case.
Although the problem looks absurd, the problem of getting data out was solved after then. On July 14, 2021, the Epidemic Investigation Auxiliary Platform from the Central Center went live, providing an integrated platform for query functions such as hot zone map, epidemic survey trajectory, and epidemic survey based on the real-time-message system [7]https://health.udn.com/health/story/120952/5624666 . There are also some complaints regarding no integration of data of identified potential contacts and footprints of infectors. One of the relevant complaints on May 2021, is about the repetition of work from the government personnel. The author of the complaint describes that the Caring Center asked where she was when she was already arranged in a quarantine facility. She asked in return, “Doesn’t the local health bureau have data to check out?” She further spoke, almost every two other days, there were different units to ask for her information which she repeatedly answered many times. She wondered why not put the information into a system [8]https://www.dcard.tw/f/2019_ncov/p/236091167 . Since the integrated platform for epidemic surveys went live in July, this problem should be already solved.
7.(3).4.1.2 Problem: Costly
The second problem with the real-time message-contact system is that it requires a considerable amount of money for a phone message service. The budget of this system is 300 million, as the system requires message service from telecommunication companies. In October 2021, the budget of 300 million was almost finished, and NCC hoped the telecommunication companies “share the hardship”, which attracted a lot of criticism that it’s ineffective while costing a lot of money. The government responded that the original budget was 800 million; it became not enough because the legislative department cut 500 million [9]https://www.ctwant.com/article/144629 [10]https://tw.news.yahoo.com/簡訊實聯制3億預算快花完-ncc-盼電信業者共體時艱-014743489.html . Yet, this shouldn’t be a reason, as there is a better solution: Using an APP with Bluetooth technology to record civilians’ footprints. This solution doesn’t require sending phone messages to the government so won’t have the costs of phone message services.
On April 27, 2022, the central center announced the cessation of the real-time-message-contact system and started promoting the use of the Social Distancing APP [11]https://new7.storm.mg/article/4002428 [12]https://www.taiwanhot.net/news/992100/「沒實質效果」陳時中廢簡訊實聯制+鄉民歡呼「德政」：擾民政策掰掰！ . Many Taiwanese criticized that the government should use this APP instead of the real-time message-contact system in the first place. In fact, during the time using the message system, some people already questioned why don’t use an App with Bluetooth technology. The government responded that it’s because there will be issues needed to deal with when developing an APP and the timeframe of coming out of a system is short ( I couldn’t find the source article, but I remember I read an article that writes this response from the government ). Nevertheless, in my view, this shouldn’t be a problem. The Social Distancing APP in Taiwan was already published on May 2021; there was much news reporting this APP; there were some civilians using this APP, too [13]https://pansci.asia/archives/321848 . Why didn’t the government think of utilizing and revising the ready-made App? Not to mention the APP is even not completely developed by a civilian-run company; it’s developed through the cooperation of the Executive Department of the Taiwan government and the AI Lab, a civilian-run company [14]https://www.inside.com.tw/article/19491-executive-yuan-develope-social-distancing-app-with-ai-lab .
7.(3).4.1.3 Problem: Can’t find out who has contacted wan infector and how long has been an infector stick around a specific area
The third problem of this message system is that the system can’t find out who has contacted an infector and how long has been an infector stick around a specific area, according to the legislator Ms. Wang. I think it’s an natural flaw of this message system; this means using this system will certainly accompany such a flaw and improvements for this system won’t help. Nevertheless, it is still a problem. A better solution is to use an App with Bluetooth technology to do contact tracing. Taiwan has one: Social Distancing App, which was adopted after the cessation of the message system.
7.(3).4.1.4 Doubts which shouldn’t be problems
There are two doubts about the message system which shouldn’t be a problem. I only point out two doubts shouldn’t be a problem, but there could be more.
The legislator Ms. Wang also criticized that data in the message system was only stored for 28 days [15]https://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20210701001128-260407?chdtv . Though she had pointed out some very critical issues of this system, this criticism on the contrary is unreasonable. The reason that data is only stored for 28 days is for protecting civilians’ privacy, and the incubation period of COVID-19 only lasts for 14 days, so the government thinks 28 days are enough for doing an epidemic investigation, which the government already explained when rolling out this system [16]https://ctee.com.tw/news/policy/462516.html . She should Google the reason from the government before she speaks . If she has some opinions on why the government’s thought on setting 28 days is wrong, she can describe her reasons, but there is none, just “the government only store data for 28 days”. This means she didn’t Google the reason from the government before she criticized.
Another doubt which shouldn’t be a problem is that many citizen complained they often received scam messages after using the Real-Time-Message-Contact system [17]https://tw.news.yahoo.com/實聯制後推銷電話增-ncc-手機用太多-201000738.html . Nevertheless, this doubt was already cleared. The Chairman of NCC, Yao Xiang Chen, answered that there was no leak of data from this system and it’s probably because people use mobile phone more often than ever during this pandemic [18]https://tw.news.yahoo.com/實聯制後推銷電話增-ncc-手機用太多-201000738.html. According to The Computer King Ada, the reason that civilians often received promotion calls is that many companies focused on telemarketing after lossing profit from physical stores during this pandemic, and one of the ways these companies can get phone numbers are mostly from the valid list screened by a phone-number-screening machine [19]https://www.kocpc.com.tw/archives/414687 .
At first, I don’t want to write this doubt as this doubt was already cleared. But one thing I want to point out is that The Computer King Ada wrote this sentence in the article I quote, “Legislators take a person’s argument on the PTT (an online forum in Taiwan) as true. I can only be speechless.” It’s reasonable that many persons who don’t know the detail of this system or how scam companies in Taiwan run would doubt if there is a leak of data in this system. Just clearing the doubt with a reasonable reason is enough; no need to blame the legislators who raised this doubt.
7.(3).4.1.4 Suggestions have been made
After discussing the flaws of this platform, let’s talk about suggestions that have been made by some Taiwanese during these days. Except for using the Social Distancing App as the replacement of the message system, which is already executed, this article from Foresight magazine provides some suggestions for improvements of the Social Distancing APP which I think it’s good and worth noting [20]https://www.gvm.com.tw/article/79779 . You can click and read it if you are interested.
7.(3).4.2 Electronic fencing system
Another common criticism during this pandemic in Taiwan is toward the Electronic Fencing System. An article from Storm Media wrote, “I remember earlier this year, the Central Epidemic Command Center illegally used “SkyNet” to uncover several self-managed citizens at New Year’s Eve concerts in various counties and cities….Where is the legal source of its use? The Tsai administration has not responded so far! [21]https://www.storm.mg/article/3797254 ”
The so-called “SkyNet” in Taiwan is the Electronic Fencing System of the Taiwan government. One article of Cool3c wrote a detailed explanation about this system, “The electronic fencing system does not use GPS satellites to locate people, but rather use a link between the cell phone and the base station to confirm their location. After inserting a SIM card, a cell phone will find a nearby base station and connect to it……When a cell phone connects with a nearby base station, the IMEI information of the cell phone is also available in addition to the phone number information…..Therefore, the command center can track a phone number, IMEI code, and other information to confirm which base station a home quarantine patient went near, and further find the location of the home quarantine patient and self-managed citizens.” The article further points out the difference of this SkyNet in Taiwan (Electronic fencing system) and the SkyNet in China, and most importantly, the article emphasizes that “the command center does not know the whereabouts of non-quarantine citizens. In addition, all connection records between the cell phone and the base station are de-identified to avoid exploitation [22]https://www.cool3c.com/article/158993 .”
Notice two points from the word I quote: First, the electronic fencing system doesn’t use GPS to locate people. Using GPS to locate people is a controversial action that possibly involves infringing users’ privacies; therefore, many governments and tech companies have tried to avoid using it. In fact, AI Labs, the tech company in Taiwan, also avoids using GPS technology when developing the Social Distancing App of Taiwan. So the government was already making efforts in protecting citizens’ privacy. Second, specifically discuss one of the concerns from the criticism: Use “SkyNet” to uncover several self-managed citizens. A point that should be noted is that the one who was traced by the government is “self-managed” citizens. As we all know, self-managed citizens shouldn’t go to any public gathering. The article of Cool3c emphasizes that “the command center does not know the whereabouts of non-quarantine citizens”, which means that the command center only controls the footprints of potential infectors. Therefore, the criticism of the government’s action of tracking citizens’ movements possibly didn’t take this point into account, and so did many Taiwanese who believe this criticism.
That said, as the criticism wrote, “illegally”, and “Where is the legal source of its use?”, another crucial point of this criticism is about the legality of the use of this system, which is worth being discussed. The article of Cool3c also wrote, “In addition to security concerns, there are also arguments that the electronic fencing system lacks a clear legal authorization, and although it is implemented in accordance with the Communicable Disease Control Act, the government still needs to be more actively examined to see if using this system violates the privacy of the public [23]https://www.cool3c.com/article/158993 Indeed, Renxian Wang, Chairman of R.O.C. association for Disease Control also indicated that usually, it’s presidents to issue an emergency order for the promulgation of such preventive measures in most democratic countries, but Taiwan has implemented such measures according to only the Infectious Diseases Control Act, which may violate the constitution. Renxian Wang further pointed out that the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act regulates the competent authorities to request surveillance of infectors with statutory infectious diseases due to epidemic prevention; however, citizens doing home quarantine and self-managed citizens are not confirmed patients, and if they are still monitored by the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act, the controversy of privacy infringement will be extended [24]https://tw.stock.yahoo.com/news/社會-電子圍籬進階版-防疫專家指恐違憲-001456400.html . Whether it’s right to use such a system to monitor self-managed citizens’ movements or not, a detailed discussion of related laws must be done. Many western countries have discussed and passed laws to regulate the use of technology for governments’ works related to disease control during this pandemic.
Though I agree that a detailed discussion of related law must be done, if the use of this system, which already both achieves anonymization, and gathers data based on the Minimization Principle, is not legal at the moment, I personally support revising relevant laws to make the surveillance toward self-managed citizens legal, as it’s important to make sure that self-managed citizens won’t spread lethal diseases. (Note: I also still support that systems used by the government must both achieve anonymization and gather data based on the Minimization Principle including the government won’t gather data of non-quarantine citizens; that’s why I want to say this system already did both of them.) In addition, according to an article by Taiwan’s Legislative Department, even in the EU, where personal data protection regulations are most stringent, the governments are not prohibited from obtaining location information from telecom operators. The EU Data Protection Committee considers that in principle, such location data must be anonymized or with the prior consent of the person concerned [25]https://www.ly.gov.tw/Pages/Detail.aspx?nodeid=6590&pid=212118 . Since location data obtained by the Electric Fencing System of Taiwan is already anonymized, the Taiwan government would have the right to gather such data of even self-managed citizens based on the EU’s regulation. In addition, the EU’s data protection policy also includes the Minimization Principle [26]https://edps.europa.eu/data-protection/data-protection/glossary/d_en . The Taiwan government can consider adopting the EU’s principle and revising relevant laws if such use is not legal in Taiwan at the moment.
7.(3).5. Suggestions of mine
As the above paragraphs state, there are many problems in the platforms of governments. Continue to discuss the platforms from the Taiwan government in particular. In one legislative meeting in Taiwan, legislator Miss Kuo pointed out that many digital platforms of the Taiwan government including the vaccination-appointment platform were developed by a civilian-run company, Trade-Van. She further spoke that there was only one company, Trade-Van, coming to negotiate a price in every bidding [27]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDbbxhsHiIA . When the legislator Miss Kuo ask the Minister of Health and Welfare Shi Chong Chen why choosing this company, he only answered “Because it worked with the Taiwan government before, so it earns the trust of the Taiwan government”, which aroused many criticisms [28]https://www.ettoday.net/news/20211014/2101306.htm . Some Taiwanese indicated that developing this vaccination appointment system is not difficult, but they will never be able to succeed from such bidding.
So how to solve this problem? I suggest starting with five actions: One, choose a different development vendor or hire a development team. Two, hire a professional in project management and product management as the project/product manager who is responsible for a government system. Three, plan and decide early if the government needs to have a new system. Four, develop in advance in normal times (Not during a pandemic) some necessary systems which will be used by citizens and government personnel during special periods or adopt a hybrid approach of both adopting a quick solution and developing a system. Fifth, don’t include the hosting fees in the pay for a development vendor. Make the hosting fee reimbursed on an actual expense. Let me explain in detail.
7.(3).5.1 Choose a different development vendor or hire a development team on its own
In the earlier paragraphs, I talked about legislator Miss Kuo pointed out that many digital platforms of the Taiwan government including the vaccination-appointment platform were developed by a civilian-run company, Trade-Van[29]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDbbxhsHiIA . I also discussed many problems of the vaccination platform from the Taiwan government, which was developed by Trade-Van. Some of the problems are pretty obvious and shouldn’t be what software engineers with a certain level of ability should make. I was almost very angry with those developers, but when I saw some reviews of Trade-Van from employees working there on Qoille (a job review website in Taiwan), I found that this company mostly hires people who with very little coding experience or freshmen. So I looked at the job vacancies page of this company, and I found the salary range that this company is willing to offer to a software engineer is only TWD$33,000 to $52,000. That’s ridiculously low. I don’t think that’s a salary which you can find a good engineer who is capable of doing “well” such a big project as a national project. Many Taiwanese engineers working in subsidiaries of western companies get salaries higher than TW$100,000. According to Michael Page’s Taiwan salary report of 2022, the median salary for a senior front-end engineer or a senior back-end engineer in Taiwan is TWD$1.6 million per year [30]https://tw.alphacamp.co/blog/software-developer-salary-in-taiwan .
There still are some engineers in Trade-Van who get proper salaries ( Judge based on the salary level in Taiwan). A senior engineer working there got a TWD$1,030,000 salary per year; nonetheless, his base monthly salary is only TWD$46,000, and most of the salary of $1,030,000 is from bonus [31]https://salary.tw/c/KCiX?currentPage=1 .
Ok, what’s the point of the above I said? Remember the budget of the vaccine-appointment system is TWD$ 200 million? So the company Trade-Van received $200 million to develop a system, but it hires not-good or inexperienced engineers to do this big national project. The system sucks, but that’s mostly not the engineers’ problem; it’s the boss of this company’s problem to only use cheap salary hire cheap engineers who certainly aren’t skilled enough to do this project well. If you want to use cheap salaries to hire not-good or inexperienced engineers, that’s fine; do smaller projects instead. That cheap salary is not the salary you should spend to hire a good engineer for such a big project as a national project. Though the boss did give project bonuses to the employees so part of the $200 million did go into the engineers working there, the engineers working there are engineers who are willing to get TWD$46K per month instead of $100K per month which many good engineers can get. So why would a boss think he can use $46K to hire good engineers and do jobs well? What’s more, this company has done many government projects, but the boss never thinks of hiring better engineers with higher salaries to deal with future national projects. The result of choosing Trade-Van which hires cheap engineers? We spend TWD$200 million but most of the money wasn’t spent on hiring good engineers, so we got a fucking terrible system.
As I said, the problem of this platform doesn’t all lies in engineers. Another reason why the vaccination appointment platform in Taiwan sucks is that the company Trade-Van didn’t hire an interface designer. If this company had an interface designer to design the interface, the platform will be much more beautiful. That’s the interface designer’s job, not the engineers’. But again, the company Trade-Van received $200 million to develop a system, but it didn’t hire a good interface designer to design the interface. $200 million is a huge amount of money that should include design services. Part of the $200 million went into the boss’s pocket instead of hiring a good interface designer. By the way, two additional points: One, many of the interfaces of the government’s systems developed by Trade-Van suck. You can see some of the interfaces on Trade-Van’s website. I don’t know how much money this company received but didn’t hire a good interface designer? Two, if the company lacks good front-end engineers to work with designers, it needs to hire some good front-end engineers, too.
The development vendor for such a big national system needs to be replaced. Many of the systems developed by this Trade-Van suck, but Minister Shi Chong Chen’s decision of choosing a digital platform is only based on an unreasonable trust based on previous work relationships with the government. As I previously said, I just want to ask Minister Chen why someone who has worked with the government never thinks of hiring better engineers with higher salaries to deal with your projects. The Minister of Health and Welfare Shi Chong Chen has a pretty clear mind in making many decisions during this pandemic, from my perspective. But when it comes to dealing with digital solutions, I believe he let his lack of knowledge in software affects his decision-making. As he lacks knowledge in software, he turned to using “work relationship” to make the decision. Not everyone who lacks knowledge in a specific area would do so, but he did (That said, many people who lack of knowledge in that specific area like him will probably do the same thing as he did).
Anyway, how to choose a development vendor? Except for the most obvious way: Asking a software expert to join the decision-making process (So I also wonder why Fong Tong also agrees with this vendor), I suggest checking the average salary range of engineers of a company, which you can find information on the Internet. If the average salary range of engineers in a company is low, “most of” engineers in this company probably aren’t skilled enough to do a big national project well. If you choose this company, the result will most likely be getting a terrible system. In conclusion, two takeaways from this suggestion: First, choose a different development vendor. Second, check the salary range of engineers in vendors when choosing development vendors. A big project should have good engineers with high salaries.
There is an alternative that I personally recommend to governments: Hire a development team on their own instead of outsourcing. Intelligence units in the U.S and the U.K such as the FBI, CIA, and MI6 all hire some of the best engineers in the countries with high salaries to work on developing software, data security, and other matters (They do outsource for some systems, too. But that’s just some of the systems they use). Digital solutions have also become a part of human life; almost every government division requires efficient systems to do jobs while some divisions are still using outdated software. In the meantime, data security of the government’s systems is also important, too. So I think the Taiwan government can imitate these western intelligence units and hire some of the best engineers with high salaries to build digital systems for the government personnel and civilians while protecting the security of data. ( The U.S state governments can do the same if they don’t have a good development team on their own, as some of the digital solutions from local state governments are also terrible. ) ( In the meantime, in terms of the problem in Taiwan that some of Taiwan’s government platforms are terrible, if they are developed by the engineers hired by the government, fire them and find new ones. That said, you need to identify what’s your concern and where the problem is. For example, if your concern is the interface sucks, it’s possible that you don’t have an interface designer at all as in the Trade-Van case. That’s your problem because you didn’t hire an interface designer. If that terrible interface was indeed designed by a designer, well, fire him/her. )
Note: By the way, this company (Trade-Van) also has some other problems according to the job reviews on Qollie, such as bureaucratic, autocratic style of management, office fighting…etc. I become very sympathetic to engineers working there after reading those reviews, but that’s not the main point of this topic. You can check it out if you are interested.
Another alternative is to find a ready-made platform from a civilian-run company that provides what you need, such as vaccine appointments. There were some state governments in the U.S using Eventbrite‘s ticketing platform to schedule vaccine appointments [32]https://www.wsj.com/articles/health-officials-scramble-to-provide-booking-systems-for-covid-19-vaccines-11610488516 . However, there are two concerns. One, how secure such platforms are in terms of data is a question. Two, most of such platforms are from other countries, not from Taiwan. Even if there is a company promising it will ensure data security, Taiwan should still be careful in whether to believe it or not, as it’s a foreign company. Because of the two points, I personally don’t recommend adopting a civilian-run platform, especially if the platform is not from Taiwan.
7.(3).5.2 Hire project and product management professionals as project/product managers responsible for government systems
Many systems of the Taiwan government suck. Remember I said the interface of the vaccination appointment platform which is developed by the company, Trade-Van, and the previous version of the Health and Welfare App are ugly? In fact, the interfaces of many systems of the Taiwan government which are developed by this company, Trade-Van, are not only ugly but also not user-friendly. The IT governor Fung Tang didn’t notice that; that’s probably because she is an engineer whose professional lies in only coding, while she doesn’t have a certain level of aesthetics. A software project/product manager with sufficient experience should easily spot such a disadvantage of lack of interface design. She/He should easily find that the interfaces are both ugly and not user-friendly, and find a better vendor who has an interface designer, or apply to hire both a user experience designer and an interface designer by the government.
In addition, this project/product manager can also propose new functions which are good for users. For example, Germany’s App has added vaccination record and test certificate functions (By the way, it has a beautiful interface and it’s a German-speaking country but has an English version in the first place) [33]https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.rki.coronawarnapp&hl=en_US&gl=US .
I also have recommendations on who can be the project/product manager and the vendor in Taiwan.
For the project/product manager in Taiwan, I recommend Gapi You. He has sufficient experience in both project management and product management of software, has been a consultant for many companies, and has received many compliments in the software industry in Taiwan. Maybe he will be a good choice for the project/product manager. ( Note: I don’t know him nor did I work with him before, so I don’t know if he is indeed that good. I simply recommend him based on the popularity of project management professionals in the software industry in Taiwan. )
For the vendor in Taiwan, I recommend AJA Creative Design. Though there are many user experience designers in Taiwan nowadays, this company is one of the few companies in Taiwan that actually does the entire user experience design flow and has done a great job in many cases. That said, this company only provides design services. The Taiwan government has to find another vendor for developing systems and working with such a design vendor. I don’t have any candidate for the development vendor at the moment, but as I said, I think the development vendor also needs to be replaced because of some of the problems I pointed out in the earlier paragraphs, and I personally recommend the government hires a software development team on its own instead of outsourcing every time because of the reason I explained in 7.(3).5.1.
Note: I don’t have/had any connection or business relationship with the above person/company I recommend. I simply list who I think may be good based on the Internet information I see.
Read Part 7
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Chrissy Slora
The articles published in this website are all written by Chrissy Slora. Chrissy Slora aims to make people learn about how the world can be better and provide her intelligent and wise insight by writing about various topics from technology to issues happening in the world. Follow her on social media: Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin