People who call a police hotline without a valid reason will be subject to penalties in the future.
The new rule is part of a revision to a law governing social order. On Friday, the legislature passed the third reading of a partial revision to the law.
Under the revision, violators will be fined up to US$40 or detained up to three days after police advice goes unheeded.
Statistics released by the National Police Agency shows that there were about 131,000 nuisance phone calls to the police hotline from May to December of last year, nearly 10% of the calls received from that period. There were also a large amount of calls from people with mental illness or under the influence of alcohol. The statistics also show that the calls that can be grouped under false alarms are slightly more than 1,000.
People First Party lawmaker Chen Yi-chieh said the revision is aimed at not wasting police resources. Chen said she hopes the penalties will stop people abusing the system and making unnecessary calls to the police.