TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan’s health ministry on Wednesday issued new “sovereign cloud” guidelines intended to govern how cloud services can be used across public healthcare systems, with an emphasis on keeping sensitive data under Taiwan’s control.

Officials framed the move as part of a broader response to mounting care demands in an aging society, noting that Taiwan has entered the “super-aged” category as the 65-and-older population is over 20% of residents, per CNA.

The standards were unveiled at a ministry event that brought together major cloud providers and legal and ethics specialists, as the government looks for ways to modernize infrastructure without loosening safeguards around patient records. According to the ministry’s information unit, the daily flow of prescriptions and insurance records comprises the public’s “digital DNA,” which must be protected, per GeneOnline.

Health Minister Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said Taiwan’s healthcare reforms depend on stronger digital foundations. This includes expanding prevention and health promotion, shifting more care into communities and homes, redesigning payments to reward outcomes rather than volume, and upgrading the underlying systems that connect providers.

In practice, the new cloud framework sets conditions for vendors that want to serve government healthcare workloads. It requires encryption from end to end with key control kept by the government.

It also calls for data and backups to remain in Taiwan, restricts high-level administrative access to vetted Taiwan nationals, and prioritizes compliance with Taiwan law. To keep services stable the guidelines stress redundancy and transparent auditing.

The ministry has been pushing a next-generation medical information platform and greater interoperability among systems. The guidelines are likely to shape upcoming government tenders as agencies expand cloud use for healthcare workloads.