IDR 100 Billion Fine For Anyone Who Misuses Personal Data

Minister of Communications and Informatics Johnny G Plate (Tachta Citra Elfira / VOI)

JAKARTA - Indonesia is the fifth country in ASEAN to have a Personal Data Protection Act (RUU PDP). This makes Indonesia deserve to be proud of itself, because not all countries want to protect the personal data of their citizens in cyberspace.

Minister of Communication and Information, Johnny G. Plate, revealed that if the government together with the Indonesian Parliament immediately finished discussing the PDP Bill, Indonesia would become the 5th country in ASEAN to have a PDP Law after Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

According to Kominfo data, currently there are 126 countries in the world that have General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

However, since December last year the PDP Bill has not yet been completed. Plate revealed that the government had submitted a draft Presidential Letter to the Indonesian Parliament last week.

"The government has delivered the President's letter to the DPR by officially sending the PDP Bill to the DPR. We hope it can be processed quickly," explained Plate to the media crew during a press conference at the Ministry of Communication and Information Building, Tuesday, January 28.

However, Plate did not mention how the details of the PDP bill target could be passed immediately. This is because there are still more important regulations that must be ratified by the DPR, and there will also be additional or reduced regulations in the bill.

"There are several important bills currently being prepared by the government. Apart from the PDP Bill, there are also Omnibuslaw Job Creation and Tax Omnibuslaw," explained Plate.

Plate also said that later the draft discussion mechanism for this bill would become the full authority of the DPR in a plenary session. He also hopes that this process will be carried out simultaneously.

In addition, Kominfo also regulates sanctions for misuse of personal data, in which the perpetrator will be fined up to 100 billion.

"We have the highest (fines) of Rp. 100 billion," said Semuel Pangerapan, Director General of Informatics Applications (Dirjen APTIKA).

Unfortunately, Kominfo has not explained in detail what kind of misuse of data will be subject to sanctions of 100 billion.

Semuel also explained that these fines are a natural thing, in every country must have these regulations, it's just that the amount of fines and implementation varies depending on the economic impact.

With this, Kominfo also collaborates with the Financial Services Authority to implement this policy in violations of the financial technology sector.

It is known that this bill contains 15 chapters with 72 articles. There are four important elements in the PDP Bill, namely related to data security, data ownership, both personal data in general and more specific personal data, data usage, and finally there is regulation of data traffic between countries (cross-border).