TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Time to forge a better and more privacy-conscious digital future
Cookies are merely text files that can be deleted at any time and they do not have the capability to cause harm to one’s computer system.
Change Size
Indonesia has yet to join the club of nations from Brazil to China and India that have issued stringent regulations on personal data protection, modeled on the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which protects citizens from privacy and data breaches regardless of where the data is processed and which recognizes citizens’ “right to be forgotten”, so users can ask for data erasure and delisting from digital platforms and search engines. (Shutterstock/PopTika)
S
ince the beginning of the internet, third-party cookies have emerged as an anonymous way for websites to remember things about their users to support targeted online advertising. A few years ago, web browsers such as Safari and Firefox blocked the use of third-party cookies due to growing data privacy concerns. Today, third-party cookies mainly exist in Google’s Chrome browser and most recently, Google has once again delayed its decision to deprecate third-party cookies in Chrome until 2024.
Whether cookies get phased out tomorrow or in 2024, this is an opportunity for the internet to reset itself while maintaining the internet economy funded by advertising. Consumers pay for the news they read, the music they listen to and the TV shows they stream by watching or listening to commercials.
To reset the internet effectively would require an internet identity framework that is much more capable than cookies and provides consumers with greater privacy controls and allows them to opt-in to relevant advertising, regardless of device or channel.
Cookies are merely text files that can be deleted at any time and they do not have the capability to cause harm to one’s computer systems. They cannot proactively access and copy information on users' hard drives. Cookies only store information that the user inputs into a website. That being said, cookies are highly relevant to users’ privacy concerns because the information that a user inputs may include their name, address, phone number and even credit card information.
The fact that this information may be tracked and shared across websites and can be accessed by numerous third parties has resulted in growing uneasiness among internet users regarding their online data privacy.
Currently, personal data protection regulations in Indonesia can be found incorporated in several laws and regulations, including in the Banking Law and the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law, while the use of personal data in electronic systems is governed by the ITE Law and its implementing regulations.
To integrate all needs and issues crucial to the protection of personal data of people in this country, The House of Representatives has been discussing at length the personal data protection bill.
