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Phone registration raises doubts over personal data security
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A netizen browses the Internet on a mobile phone. (JP/Annisa Steviani)
T
wenty-five-year-old freelancer Marlina had been using her mobile phone number for almost four years when she heard an announcement from the Communications and Information Ministry two weeks ago regarding mobile phone number registration.
In the announcement, the ministry required all prepaid mobile phone numbers to be registered using their citizenship identity number (NIK) and family card (KK) number between Oct. 31 and the end of Feb. next year. The ones already registered using only the NIK are required to re-register by sending their KK number via text message to the number 4444.
The registration mechanism, as mandated in the 2017 Ministerial Regulation on Telecommunication Customer Registration, includes a verification done by telecommunications providers that will validate the civil registry data with the government’s database.
Such requirements, which are claimed to prevent SIM card misuse for fraud and terrorism, raised Marlina’s doubts, particularly as she saw no protection of her data privacy had been offered by the ministry.
“Why should they ask for my KK number? A lot of my private information can be exposed if they have my NIK and KK numbers,” Marlina said.
As the ministry has been intensifying campaigns in the past few weeks reminding people to register, some users on social media have raised questions over the new policy, which threatens to block the phone numbers of those who fail to comply.
“Starting from March 2018, perhaps I won’t be able to be contacted by [mobile] phone anymore because I refuse to validate my prepaid number with [my] civil registry data,” Yogyakarta-based activist Elanto Wijoyono tweeted last Wednesday.
