Indonesia will have a Personal Data Protection Act

Ilustrasi (dok)

Jakarta (IndoTelko) - Indonesia will have Personal Data Protection Act which aims to protect telecommunications services users from any irresponsible data misuse.

"Personal data protection issue is a priority and become the government's proposal for National Legislation Program (Prolegnas). Besides, we also proposed a revised draft bill on Revised Act No. 36/99 on Telecommunications. The Telecommunication and Informatics Ministry and the House's Commission I also agreed to undertake the revision of Law No. 11/2008 on Information and Electronic Transactions (ITE), especially for Article 27 of the policy," said Indonesian Telecommunication and Informatics Minister Rudiantara on Tuesday (27/1).

Rudiantara said that personal data protection laws is needed to be implemented in Indonesia as personal communication device use is rapidly increases and diversified business model.

"The simplest leaked information such as advertorial SMS (short message service) that usually sent from an institution or company but today it’s from a personal user. This matter needs to be addressed," Rudiantara said.

To overcome the unwanted SMS, the Ministry along with the Financial Services Authority (OJK) are working together to regulate financial institutions that utilizing SMS broadcast system.

"We also regulate the pre-paid sim card registration. We are evaluating to verified pre-paid data which can be obtained from the Intrernal Affairs Ministers' E-KTP (electronic ID) data, as the current most valid data," Rudiantara said.

House's Commission I legislator Bachtiar Aly said that the Personal Data Protection is not something new. "Germany has already implemented this Act, it is called the Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (BDSG). They have a war history and made personal data issue of is sensitive and not all organizations can access," Bacthiar said.

House's Communication Commission chief Tantowi Yahya said the parliament will propose the bill on broadcasting and the Republic of Indonesia's Radio Television (RTRI) bill. "The broadcasting bill would be discussing on broadcasting digitalization," Tantowi said.(es)