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Critics question data protection authority in privacy bill
Policymakers have agreed to give the President the authority to establish a data protection oversight agency, but many questions remain about the draft privacy bill, with critics believing public institutions found in violation of privacy will still enjoy impunity.
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Illustration of data protection (Shutterstock.com/Boiko Y)
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olicymakers have agreed to give the President the authority to establish a data protection oversight agency, but many questions remain about the draft privacy bill, with critics believing public institutions found in violation of privacy will still enjoy impunity.
House of Representatives Commission I overseeing intelligence and information and the government unanimously endorsed the privacy bill to be passed into law in a plenary session this month before lawmakers go into recess, after finding common ground on the agency’s status late on Wednesday afternoon. They agreed only to determine the roles of the agency in a more general context and that it would answer to the President, but they left its institutional design to the discretion of the President.
Commission I deputy chairman Abdul Kharis Almasyhari said lawmakers opposed the agency being put under the Communications and Information Ministry and preferred not to use the word “independent” to describe the agency.
"I'm not saying ‘independent’ because there is no such word in the bill, but I can confirm that the agency will monitor and oversee the implementation of personal data protection," he said. "We didn't want [the agency] to be under the ministry and finally we found common ground."
Communications and Information Minister Johnny G. Plate also declined to use the word “independent” to describe the agency, stressing that it would be part of the executive whose establishment would be in the hands of the President.
“Don't call it independent, the terminology is not clear. What is certain is that it is within the executive branch, to be appointed by the President and to be regulated in a presidential regulation,” Johnny said.
Read also: House ‘prepared’ to open up about data protection bill
