The government is obliged to protect the population data on its citizens. This provision is stipulated in Law No. 24/2013 in lieu of Law No. 23/2006 on Population Administration.
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Antara Foto/ Dhemas Reviyanto
A shopkeeper helps a customer register his prepaid phone card on Wednesday (28/2) at Mal Ambassador in Jakarta. The Communications and Information Ministry said that after the Feb. 28 deadline, prepaid mobile service subscribers would face a gradually blocking of services, and they would be blocked permanently from May 1 if their card was not registered.
A complaint was published on Feb. 25 in the "Readers\' Letters" column of this daily that expressed his objections to marketing promotions that he received on his mobile phone.
The resident of Bogor, West Java, had registered his SIM card as regulated by the Communications and Informatics Ministry (Kemkominfo). He understood that if his SIM card was registered, he would no longer receive various promotions through his number; that his mobile phone number and related data would not be used by others. However, he was disappointed, because the ministry’s promise was not met.
The reader’s complaint is in line with the findings of the Ombudsman of the Republic of Indonesia that was published on Monday (19/3). The Ombudsman received a number of reports from members of the public who alleged that the census data was leaked from the registry of prepaid mobile phone numbers. The Ombudsman received the complaints through social media and by telephone.
In a hearing on Monday between House of Representatives Commission I, the ministry and telecommunications operators in Jakarta, it was revealed that registering prepaid mobile phone cards was important to protecting the people, for example, from fraud. Moreover, the data on prepaid card users is verified through the population and civil registration database. The registration period ran from October 2017 to Feb. 28, 2018. By March, PT Telekomunikasi Seluler (Telkomsel) and PT XL Axiata had blocked 22.6 million unregistered prepaid mobile phone numbers.
However, misuse of customer data continues to occur after the registration deadline. There is also a discrepancy in the database of telecommunications service providers, which contains about 304,859,000 registered numbers, with the database of the Home Ministry’s Directorate General of Population and Civil Registry, which contains about 350,788,000 numbers, according to the Home Ministry.
Under the 1933 Montevideo Convention, the founding of a state must meet the requirements of both constitutive and declarative theories. The constitutive consist of the inherent elements of the state, like the people, the territory and the sovereign government. The declarative consists of recognition from other sovereign states. The element of the people is, of course, closely related to a state’s population data.
The government is obliged to protect the population data on its citizens. This provision is stipulated in Law No. 24/2013 in lieu of Law No. 23/2006 on Population Administration. Article 77 of the law states that all persons are prohibited from ordering, facilitating and/or manipulating population data and/or elements of population data. Article 79, Paragraph 1 mandates that the data must be maintained and kept secret by the state.
Officials and others users of the population data are prohibited from disseminating any data outside their authority. Article 95A of Law No. 24/2013 underlines that the perpetrators of data dissemination that do not possess authority over the population data or personal data may be subject to a maximum two-year prison sentence and/or a fine of a maximum Rp 25 million.
The threat of such crimes occurring is small. However, leaking the population data can lead to public distrust of the government. The state is also vulnerable if the population data can be easily obtained by anyone.
