Tighter regulation for Indonesian content providers

Ilustrasi (dok)

JAKARTA (IndoTelko) - The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (Kemenkominfo) ensuring the issuance of the Ministerial Regulation for Over The Top (OTT) companies or application service providers and content would be delayed from the original schedule on March 31, 2016.

However, The Communication and Information Technology Rudiantara have issued a Circular Letter No. 3 of 2016 on Application and Content Service Provision throughout the Internet (OTT).

The ministry's Head of Information and Public Relations Ismail Cawidu said that the letter is addressed to the OTT and telecommunication providers.

"This Letters is an intro before the Ministerial Regulation on OTT is published. We are prioritizing that the letter would be the foundation of the future Ministerial Regulation. Later we will hold a public test, before that we will coordinate with the related Ministries or institutions, "he said in a short message, last week  

He added that the currently published circular letter refers to the Ministerial Regulation No 21 of 2013 on multimedia content.

"Besides referring to the ministerial Regulation, the circular letter is also concerned with other rules such as tax-related, pornography, terrorism and other things related to the permanent establishment (BUT) regulation. It will be more detail because applications providers are also included besides content provider," he said.

Previously, Minister Rudiantara hinted that the Ministerial Regulation on OTT will be delayed to absorb more public aspirations. The discourse on Ministerial Regulation about OTT is disseminated to he public, (See also: Telkom Blocking Netflix) after Telkom's stunt in blocking Netflix which violated Indonesian regulations.

Tighter regulation
The Communication and Information Technology's official website mentioned that the circular letter was issued to provide insight to Over the Top Service Providers and Telecommunication Providers to prepare to comply with the currently prepared regulation.

Based on the Circular Letter's content, the OTT will be shackled to some fairly strict rules which starts from their establishment which must be an Indonesian business entity that is incorporated or not incorporated.

As for foreign players, are required to establish a Permanent Establishment (BUT) in Indonesia. Permanent Establishment need to be established based on the provisions of legislation in the field of taxation.

Next, the OTT is fully responsible in providing services and comply with the provisions of the law.

These provisions prohibits any monopoly and unfair competition for trade, consumer protection, intellectual property rights, broadcasting, film, advertising, pornography, anti-terrorism, taxation and regulations and other relevant law.

OTT also required to perform data protection, content filtering, sensor mechanism that are in accordance with the provisions of the law, also to use the  incorporated national payment gateway in Indonesia.

Moreover OTT must use Indonesian internet protocol number and guarantee full access for lawful interception and retrieval of evidence tool for the prosecution or investigation of criminal cases by the relevant authority in accordance with the law's provisions.

Last, these OTT are required to include information and/or instructions for using the service in accordance with the provisions of Indonesian law.

The Circular Letter stated that the Internet based application service is a the use of telecommunications services via telecommunications networks based on Internet protocol that enables communication service in the form of short messages, voice calls, video calls and online conversations (chatting), financial transactions and commercial, storage and retrieval of data , games (games), networking and social media, as well as its derivatives forms.

Not only that, the Internet based content is providing all forms of digital information consisting of text, sounds, images, animations, music, videos, movies, games or a combination of any and / or all of them, including in the streaming or downloaded form  by utilizing telecommunications services via telecommunications networks based on internet protocol.

This will urge players such as Netflix, Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, and others must comply with the content of this SE.(es)