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ICT businesses to tackle policy at global forum in Bali

Indonesia will host the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) — an annual global meeting on Internet policies — this October in Bali, and local businesses in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector say they will push to abolish regulations that constrain growth

Mariel Grazella (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sat, March 2, 2013

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ICT businesses to tackle policy at global forum in Bali

I

ndonesia will host the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) — an annual global meeting on Internet policies — this October in Bali, and local businesses in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector say they will push to abolish regulations that constrain growth.

The forum, established by the UN in 2006, will be attended by representatives of governments and civil society organizations from various nations to discuss policies connected to the Internet.

Sammy Pangerapan, the chairman of the Association of Internet Service Providers (APJII), said that private sector interests at the forum would ask for legal certainties in conducting business.

Sammy, along with representatives from the Indonesian government and civil society organizations, such as the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam), is currently attending the two-day Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) meeting in Paris, France, where delegates from different nations have been deciding on the agenda for the IGF to consider.

He added that he wanted to highlight revisions of regulations that held businesses, such as Internet service providers (ISP), accountable for content that was considered to contain “negativity” uploaded by users to the web.

“We would like to know what the basis is for holding ISPs responsible,” he said.

The Communications and Information Ministry previously announced that local ISPs, including large ones run by PT Telkomsel and PT XL Axiata, were responsible for filtering and blocking pornographic content, requiring ISPs to block access to hateful and violent content.

The ministry stated that ISPs that failed to block pornography would be reported to the police and charged under the Information and Electronic Transactions Law, the Telecommunications Law and the Pornography Law.

Despite those threats, an expanding host of pornographic websites remain accessible from within Indonesia.

Some ISPs have also experienced run-ins with legal bodies regarding the Telecommunications Law and Telecommunications Providers Law.

PT Indosat Mega Media (IM2), an ISP under telecommunication operator PT Indosat, has been caught in a dispute with the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) on technical issues.

According to Sammy, such run-ins might slow businesses, stunting the rapid expansion of data networks across Indonesia.

“Growth in Internet penetration among the people will become sluggish,” he said.

Indonesia aims to become a knowledge-based economy by 2015 by improving Internet availability, which it hopes to make possible by the development of broadband networks.

Data from the APJII indicates that there were 63 million Internet users in Indonesia in 2012. The number is expected to swell to 82 million this year.

According to the World Bank, for developing markets, a 10 percent increase in broadband penetration would spark a 1.38 percent increase in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.

However, Indriaswati Dyah Saptaningrum, the executive director of Elsam, said that consumers should receive legal protection, especially regarding data privacy.

“There have been instances where people’s data was being traded without permission,” she said.

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