Data privacy, sometimes referred to as information privacy, is an area of data protection that concerns the proper handling of sensitive data (including any personal or confidential data, such as financial information and intellectual property data).
Most of us in today’s society give out personal information on a daily basis, whether it’s joining a gym or signing up to TikTok or Instagram. A broad range of services such as e-commerce platforms and even government websites where we file taxes, etc electronically store millions of its user’s data.
So how do we know if our information will be kept safe or handled properly? There is some cause for concern regarding the subject matter, especially in Indonesia, given that the government has yet to enact any specific rules on data protection and privacy. Combined with the number of data breaches over the last few years, it has definitely become a top priority for most governments to want to tackle in the near future. The European Union (EU), for example, has radically changed their legal approach to data protection and privacy by adopting the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Although Indonesia has no comprehensive laws or governmental bodies regulating data protection and privacy, there are certain laws governing the rightful use of one’s personal information based on specific sectors and sanctions that follow should any sort of misconduct under the particular acts be found. Recent data breaches have prompted the government to impose strict sanctions, mostly fines, on hackers who rely on gaining personal data for financial gain which is the prevalent motive for these cyber attacks specifically in Southeast Asia.
Whether Indonesia intends to join other countries such as the EU and China in regards to data protection and privacy in light of recent data breaches and a growing number of digital users remains to be seen; although the attitude towards such policies seem to suggest that it might just be beyond the horizon.
Our partner Enrico Iskandar, with his extensive knowledge and experience in the IT and Telecommunications sector of Indonesian law, spoke more about this in ET-Asia’s webinar on Digital Law. Bagus Enrico & Partners has been recognized as Indonesia’s 1st tier law firm in IT and Telecoms practice, with Enrico recognized as one of the leading individuals in this particular field.
