Taiwan's Digital Ministry Criticized for Disaster Data Chaos After Typhoon

Taiwan's "Forward Alliance" coalition on Thursday criticized the Digital Ministery's slow progress on standardizing disaster prevention data. The group highlighted issues encountered during Typhoon Bawee, where inconsistent data formats and slow updates created confusion and potential safety risks.

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The government not only lacks disaster data, but the data is scattered across cities and ministries, with inconsistent formats and different update times.

"Forward Alliance" chairman Wang Wan-yu stated that despite the ministry's recent "Disaster Prevention Building Blocks Innovation Competition," their testing revealed significant problems. Data is fragmented across different cities and ministries, with varying update schedules. Crucially, dynamic status definitions for essential information like hospital outpatient services and shelter availability are missing. This lack of standardized, accessible data can lead to misjudgments and endanger public safety, Wang argued.

Lin Yi-hsuan, the alliance's secretary-general, shared his team's experience building an information website. He pointed out that government disaster data uses inconsistent APIs and has capacity limitations, citing the Ministry of Transportation's TDX platform as an example. He also noted a lack of data backup during disasters, hindering post-event analysis. Lin demanded the Digital Ministery oversee the Ministry of Health and Welfare and local health bureaus to unify data formats and standards.

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The Digital Ministery hasn't even done the basic work well, and there's no reason to continue making excuses.

Wu Hsin-tai, a Taipei city council candidate, criticized the Taipei city government's inability to coordinate medical information during the typhoon, which led to the suspension of surgeries and outpatient services. She described some southern health bureaus still using manual phone calls and PDF forms for data collection, highlighting extreme inefficiency. Wu urged health bureaus to create an immediate update layer for disaster-related medical service changes based on existing National Health Insurance data within a month.

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Government agencies' disaster data not only have inconsistent APIs, but disaster-time capacity expansion and traffic limits for disaster transportation data are high.

Gan Chong-wei, a former software engineer and co-convener of the Green Party, recommended the Digital Ministery establish unified IDs and data formats. He also called for providing test data and an anomaly reporting channel, along with clear responsibilities, to prevent central and local governments from working in silos. This would reduce redundant data work for civil society groups and promote transparency and technological disaster preparedness.

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Taipei city government was unable to integrate medical information during the typhoon, and even some southern health bureaus used manual phone inquiries and PDF forms to collect statistics, which was extremely inefficient.