Quarantined: When Taiwan’s Phone Tracking System Goes Awry

It started with a LINE message from my business partner Doug Habecker at Compass Magazine to myself and our Chinese language editor informing us he had been in the hospital. He said he was feeling a bit under the weather and had visited the hospital to get it checked out, and they had decided to keep him for a few days and give him antibiotics. He said he wasn’t feeling great, but not too serious and he was fine. The hospital didn’t seem to be too concerned; they weren’t showing up with hazmat suits and were allowing visitors. After all, at this point, confirmed coronavirus cases in Taiwan were only in the 40s; it seemed pretty unlikely that was what he had. We were concerned, but not alarmed, and the biggest concern was making sure he had enough books and the like to battle boredom. 

After a couple of days, the doctors said they were going to test him for the coronavirus, just in case. I had a meeting with our staff to let them know, and to make some preparations for working from home on the unlikely chance it came to that. I emphasized Doug wasn’t feeling too seriously ill and was improving, none of us had any symptoms, and that the chances were statistically low: The meeting was a just-in-case scenario. The staff looked a little nervous, but not at all panicky.

Doug’s first test came back inconclusive, but they wanted to take three tests just in case. We continued to ask if he needed us to bring him anything, and thought most likely he’d be out soon as he said he was feeling better. He mentioned that food didn’t taste right, but didn’t think too much about it: At the time, that was one of the symptoms that hadn’t yet made it to the news. 

Then we got the message from him he had tested positive. Doug was officially Patient 50, “an American in his 50s.” I contacted the staff to let them know. I knew I’d be getting a call soon from the Taichung Health Department, so I put on a mask and went out to stock up on provisions, keeping as much distance as possible from people. And yes, I bought lots of toilet paper. 

What I didn’t buy was lots of cigarettes, heck, what a perfect opportunity to quit smoking! Big mistake.

To keep alarm low, I talked with my building manager to let him know that a call might be coming. I didn’t want him finding out in the press or some other, more alarming and dramatic, route. I emphasized I was feeling fine, and at our office, my desk and Doug’s were over two meters apart. 

Sure enough, the call from the health department arrived soon after I had finished putting away all my provisions. I was to go downstairs and meet with a woman from the local Tanzi District health department, Ms. Li. She was waiting, and a policeman was stationed nearby. She was polite and professional. I signed some papers. She gave me a pack of items and instructions. I was to take my temperature twice a day with the enclosed thermometer and inform them of any symptoms if they developed. I had the option of phoning in twice a day on a phone they provided, or using a preinstalled LINE account and sending a photo of my temperature. I took the LINE option. 

The building manager came out to ask what was going on. Ms. Li from the health department said she wasn’t at liberty to say, which is legally true. Showing up with a police officer, making me sign papers in front of the building and handing me what was clearly a pack of stuff from the government wasn’t exactly subtle, however: It was abundantly obvious what was going on. I told Ms. Li that it was fine with me for her to tell him, I knew she would tell him it was a precaution and that I wasn’t a suspected carrier yet, which she did—and I wanted him to hear it from her. I also accepted his request to make a copy of the form I had signed, which had my release date and the rules outlined. Again, I felt transparency would be best, and that would give the building a clear ending date so they wouldn’t panic the day I was out. 

Then I went back upstairs. My quarantine had officially begun. I was to not to leave my apartment under any circumstance, under threat of a fine of up to NT$1 million (US$33,333). Because it had been several days since I had seen Doug, our quarantine was to be only eight days.

My quarantine pack and its contents, issued by the Taichung City Health Department.

My mood was fine. I live alone, but being an introvert by nature, that wasn’t a major worry. I fully understood the importance of the quarantine and was fine with doing my part. I was (and still am) very impressed with Taiwan’s highly professional handling of the situation, turning what is a full-blown crisis in many other countries into a mildly disruptive situation of concern (myself and fellow Ketagalan Media contributor Kevin Hsu have compiled a list of articles in the international media praising Taiwan’s handling of the situation, which is now around 100 articles, and you can view them here). I had supplies and an internet connection. After a couple of days, a thoughtful friend let me use a spare Netflix user account. 

My biggest concern was for Doug. This would mean he would have to stay in the hospital even longer, and he could face potential media insanity if the story got out. Indeed, Doug did have a few bad days post-diagnosis, but the media didn’t catch wind. He has written an article for the Taipei Times on his experience, so I’ll leave it to him to describe. We were both concerned about the stigma that many had over being quarantined, and what that could mean for our staff, who have extended families, neighbors and friends. I wasn’t worried personally, most of my social network aren’t the type to over react to something like this. In just the previous couple of weeks, two companies in Taichung had had their entire staff quarantined. It was big news; I covered it for ICRT radio in my role as their central Taiwan correspondent. We were, as far as we knew, only the third such company to suffer such a fate. We decided to keep quiet about it until after the quarantine was over and Doug was released from hospital so the staff wouldn’t be targeted by the media and exposed to all their friends, family and neighbors. 

I also worried that no one would be in the office to answer the phones, but there was nothing to be done about it now. At least I’d had the foresight some months earlier to base all our company’s work files on a computer in the office that was synced up on Dropbox, so we could still function. I would suggest your office do the same if you can.

On day two, I pondered what it was going to be like having no human contact at all for eight days, but it turns out that wasn’t going to be the case. In the morning I sent in my temperature and a “I’m feeling fine” message as ordered. Then, early in the afternoon, my doorbell rang. Not a call on the monitor from the front desk, my actual front door. Not wearing pants, I opened the door slightly and peered out like a cat hiding in a box. 

It was the police. 

I told them to wait a moment, and hurriedly pulled on some pants—figuring that would leave a better impression—all the while wondering what the hell!? Properly attired for human interaction, though unshowered, I opened the door again like a normal person and faced two nervous looking young police officers and the building manager, all standing about as far away as possible in the little foyer by the elevator. They asked to see the phone, which I assumed was the one assigned to me, and brought it over for them to see. They asked me to hold it up, and they took a picture. They asked for my APRC number and jotted it down. 

They left me a bit shaken—they were polite and pleasant enough considering, as Taiwanese police usually are. That changed my mood though, like any unexpected visit from the police does. I was thoroughly puzzled by it, but assumed it must be part of the procedure. Perhaps checking up to see that the quarantined person had stuck around for the first day, or the first day is statistically that people jump quarantine? Perhaps it was a tactic to underscore that the police were paying attention? Yeah, that made some sense, just making sure I knew they were paying attention and that I still had the assigned phone. That must have been it, I reasoned. Nothing to be concerned about. I wasn’t going anywhere. 

In the evening I poured myself a stiff drink and settled in to watch YouTube when a text message arrived on my personal cell phone, which started with my phone number, home address and date and time, then continued (roughly translated): 

(You) have already left the range of your quarantine, please immediately return home, (you’ve) illegally left your home/broken the law on home quarantine, (you) will be fined according to the Communicable Disease Control Act and (we) will execute a forcible relocation.

 

The Central Epidemic Command Center cares about you, 1 

(No idea what the “1” was there for, but it was on all these messages I received.)

I was shocked. The police were somehow tracking my personal cell phone totally without my knowledge. I hadn’t had prior knowledge of this, nor had I been told about it, so I was totally blindsided. Apparently, I was now a hunted criminal being threatened with fines and forced relocation, while just sitting on my sofa in my underwear. What the hell was going on? In my building there are cameras everywhere, and two people at the reception desk by the only entrance to the building, all between me and the outside world that it would be extremely difficult for me to go out unnoticed. Perhaps they were worried I was the world’s only pudgy, middle-aged North American ninja.  

Not knowing what else to do and feeling quite shaken, I called the contact number I was given for Ms. Li. She explained the police were on their way, but it was probably a signal error. She said she would contact them and try and sort this out. 

Sure enough, soon the doorbell rang. This time it was a single, older policeman. He didn’t appear nervous (though the guy from reception who let him in looked nervous and kept way back), and stood a little less than a meter away from my door. Brisk and businesslike, he asked for my ID number, and started to move to take my ID by habit, then thought better of it and let me just read it to him. Again, I was photographed with the phone. I asked what was going on, and he said probably a signal error. 

For a couple of hours after Ms. Li and I chatted back and forth using LINE. She was sympathetic, realizing that this was quite alarming, and asked me to send the text of the SMS the police sent to me. She did her best, though ultimately it didn’t do any good. I am grateful for her trying to deal with this situation late in the evening, after work hours, when I knew she must already be overwhelmed as all health officials are in this crisis. Not only that, the phone they provided had a Chinese input system I don’t know how to use, so we were forced to use English, which of course is not her native language. 

I checked my GPS location on Google Maps, and sure enough, it had me located all over the place—including, at one point, in the police station three blocks away. 

My mood after this changed dramatically. I felt violated, and the good will I had towards doing my part in this crisis took a hit. It is unnerving knowing my personal phone was now a tracking device, which I didn’t even know was legal. It drove home that this was how police enforced home incarceration. I bore no ill will towards the government or police who were just doing their jobs, and Ms. Li is a very model of a good public servant, but this triggered a very different feeling about my situation.

After my quarantine was over, and when this tracking system had received more public attention, the National Communication Commission (NCC), in a masterpiece of double-speak, explained how they were not violating privacy by explaining exactly how they were doing just that, as reported in the Taipei Times: 

Regarding concerns that use of the platform could constitute an invasion of the privacy of people placed in home isolation or quarantine, the commission said that the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法) and Special Act on COVID-19 Prevention, Relief and Restoration (嚴重特殊傳染性肺炎防治及紓困振興特別條例) both give the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) clear authorization to enforce any disease prevent measures it deems necessary.

 

Use of the platform would not infringe upon people’s privacy, it added.

 

“Officials from the Executive Yuan’s Department of Cyber Security, the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] and the NCC first made plans for the system. Chunghwa Telecom was entrusted with the task of developing and launching the system on Feb. 1,” the NCC said.

 

“The system, the functions of which have been continuously optimized, has been used to track the subscribers of the nation’s five telecoms who were asked to undergo home isolation or quarantine,” it said.

 

First, the CDC compiles a list of people who need to be placed in home isolation or quarantine following close contact with COVID-19 patients or those who have returned from high-risk countries or areas, the NCC said.

 

The list is double-checked by local health and civil affairs departments, which ascertain whether the people can be reached at the cellphone and addresses they provide, it said.

 

The people’s cellphone numbers are then sent to the telecoms, which regularly report on the associated devices’ locations, which are derived from smartphone GPS data and the triangulation of base station data, it added.

 

If an isolated or quarantined person leaves their home, an alarm is triggered on the platform and their service provider sends a warning message to the person, as well as to local police, health and civil affairs agencies, the NCC said.

 

The warning message — written by the CECC — includes the person’s address, as well as the times and dates that they were found to have left their home, it said.

 

In addition to reminding them that they should immediately return home, it also warns them that they face a fine and compulsory resettlement for breaching home isolation and quarantine regulations in the Communicable Disease Control Act, it added.

Over the next day I began to feel somewhat better. The police didn’t return and I had, at that point, assumed that Ms. Li’s efforts had borne fruit. 

That didn’t last. The next morning, at just after 6:30 a.m., I was woken up by the loud doorbell going off incessantly. Bleary-eyed, I had to go through the drill yet again. The police were back, and now it was clear they could be back at any time day or night, adding yet another layer of paranoia. If they came in the middle of the night and I slept through the doorbell, what would happen? If I was in the shower and responded too slow, would they take some action? These worries gnawed at me. The cigarettes finally ran out, adding to the stress.

Finally, sick of the boring regularity of the food I had hastily prepared, I ordered food in. The front desk asked me to come down to pick it up, which I pointed out I couldn’t do. This must have caused some consternation downstairs, because it wasn’t until 15 or 20 minutes later that my doorbell rang. They had constructed a “food delivery” box, which was essentially a cardboard box neatly labeled as such. They came up and delivered the now-cold food in the box to me, asking me to put that out front of my door in future if I ordered food again. Curiously, though, a guy from downstairs came up the next day to collect the box. He stood way back and asked me to throw it to him.

Fortunately, none of the more worrying scenarios of the police showing up in the middle of the night, or while showering happened. However, their last visit was a bit absurd—it was a little after 10 p.m. in the evening, less than two hours from when my quarantine officially ended. 

I waited impatiently for midnight, shorn of my ridiculous beard that makes me look like a squirrel. Finally, the time came, and at the stroke of midnight I was on the move. I made a beeline for the 24-hour supermarket around the corner, bought some horrendously fattening snacks and a pack of cigarettes. 

Standing outside under the open sky with my waistline ruiners in hand, I lit up a cigarette and inhaled, and was filled with the rush of nicotine—and freedom. 

The next day Ms. Li came to pick up the assigned cell phone. I again thanked her profusely for her trying to help me after work that early, disturbing evening. 

Later the next week, Doug was released from the hospital after being forced to wait what must have felt like an eternity for three successive test results proving him free of the coronavirus. His doctor told him he had recovered unusually fast. Neither myself nor any of our staff developed any symptoms.

Reflecting on the loss of privacy and the tracking of the cell phone, I understand the purpose and public health concerns. It would, however, have been considerably less shocking if they had informed me in advance. I also have concerns that going forward, once the crisis has passed, that this system may be kept in place, or reactivated under less serious circumstances. Power, once granted, is hard to take back. Vigilance will be required to keep that from happening.