Indonesia Ranks Third With The Most Data Leaking Cases In The World

Examples of data leakage by Bjorka (photo: Twitter @p4c3n0g3)

JAKARTA - The journey to Indonesia's digital golden era is still continuing. Until 2030, the value of Indonesia's digital economy is projected to grow to reach 220 - 360 billion US dollars. Indonesia's digital economy growth potential cannot be separated from demographic factors, which make Indonesia the country with the largest population in Southeast Asia and 4th in the world.

According to a report from the 2023 East Ventures - Digital Competitive Index (EV-DCI), the main requirement to make demographic factors a driver of digital economic growth in Indonesia is an increase in internet penetration in the community.

The official website of the Directorate General of Aptika, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, stated that the level of internet adoption in Indonesia still shows a positive trend. Even though its growth slowed down, in early 2022, 77.0 percent of Indonesians had become internet users.

Data from We Are Social, Databoks also revealed, where internet users in Indonesia in 2022 reached 204.7 million. This number increased by more than two million users in 2021, which reached 202.6 million users.

However, Indonesia is also still facing several challenges to achieve the digital economy by 2030, such as geographical conditions, community dynamics and population dissemination, causing basic elements of the digital ecosystem, especially digital literacy, ICT infrastructure, and data security in the digital scope still need to be improved.

Data security in the digital space is the most risky thing that needs special attention. Massive use of digital technology and media is directly proportional to the amount of personal data stored on various digital platforms. Therefore, a system that can guarantee the security of personal data is needed.

Data from Surfshark, Databoks states that in the third quarter of 2022, Indonesia occupies the third position as the country with the most data leak cases, reaching 12.7 million cases. Meanwhile, Russia and France became the first and second countries with the highest number of data leaks with 14.8 jura and 12.9 million cases, respectively.

The spread of personal data of public figures by hackers known as the pseudonym 'Bjorka' in September 2022, became one of the cases of data leakage in Indonesia that attracted the most public attention. This shows that security and personal data protection are still issues in the digital scope in Indonesia.