H-1 Blocking, Director General Of Aptika: This Is A Matter Of Data Collection, Has Nothing To Do With Content Control

Press conference effective date of private PSE registration, Tuesday, 19 July (photo: YouTube screenshot)

JAKARTA - Blocking access to several application services in Indonesia has become a debate among the public. Not a few people are wondering the reason for the blocking by the Ministry of Communication and Informatics.

In a press conference held by the Director General of Information Applications at the Ministry of Communications and Informatics, Semuel A. Pangerapan on Tuesday, July 19, he explained that this blocking was in accordance with Ministerial Regulation (Permen) Kominfo number 5/2020.

The self-registration obligation by the Electronic System Operator (PSE) includes six categories, namely,

Service provider of transactions for goods or services. Financial services (Financial Technology or Fintech). Communication services and social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Telegram and WhatsApp. Services that collect personal data of Indonesians. Services from other categories, which are required to register by the relevant sector.

According to Samuel, the purpose of this PSE registration is for the government to know what services are operating in Indonesia.

"Business actors in the digital space operating in Indonesia are required to report. We must know through data collection. And PSE must know that regulations in Indonesia must be obeyed. Not only those who are domiciled in Indonesia, they must try and comply with policies," said Samuel in his remarks. .

It is undeniable that there are some people who think that the registration carried out by PSE will provide limitations in these services. However, Samuel firmly said that service data collection had nothing to do with control.

"This is only for data collection, when it comes to control, it has its own sector. This (registration) is only done to find out what services are operating in Indonesia. It has nothing to do with control," he said.

Furthermore, he explained that, when it comes to the content that the service provides, it already has its own rules.

"In essence, we emphasize that this is governance, not control. So that we know that they operate in Indonesia, and if they make a profit, they have to pay taxes," he said.

To this day, based on VOI's monitoring, several large companies such as Microsoft, Telegram, Michat, Discord, and MLBB games have been registered with the Ministry of Communication and Information.

In addition, Samuel revealed that Google cloud has registered, and other Google services should follow soon.