Transparency and Personal Data Protection Challenges in Elections
ELSAM held a public discussion on "Implementation of Personal Data Protection (PDP) Compliance in the Implementation of Election and Its Future Regulation" on Monday, October 14, 2024. This event was held in Jakarta and was attended by a number of participants from different backgrounds ranging from journalists, NGOs, general public to students.
This discussion featured three expert speakers in the field of PDP and elections. The first speaker, Parasurama Pamungkas, explained the results of ELSAM's research on diagnosing gaps in the application of PDP principles in the electoral process. This was followed by the second speaker, Binus University academic Siti Yuniarti, who explained the obligations of data controllers, data processors, and the rights of personal data subjects in the electoral process. The last speaker was Titi Anggraini, an academic from the University of Indonesia, who explained the urgency of protecting personal data to ensure the integrity of elections and the quality of democracy.
Titi recounted the case of a citizen who was prevented from registering to vote in the selection of candidates for public office because his name had been used by a political party without his permission. This shows that it is important to raise the awareness of the public to check the integrity of their personal data in the PDP governance.
On the other hand, there is a need to combine personal data protection and the principle of transparency. Election organizers must ensure that citizens' personal information is protected while maintaining open, transparent, and accountable election administration practices. Some of the challenges in this regard include the understanding and paradigm of electoral administrators, the narrative of personal data protection being misused to legitimize the closure of access to electoral data, and the need for intensive coordination and synergy between electoral administrators and the later personal data protection oversight body.
The recontextualization of the principle of free and fair elections is also very necessary from the pre-election process to the voting itself. The urgency of ensuring the implementation of the PDP law in the conduct of elections was also conveyed by Wahyudi Djafar in the opening session. Wahyudi explained that the current situation is racing with the political momentum of the change of power and the transition period according to Article 74 of the PDP Law, which ends on October 17, 2024. In addition, the PDP Law should have been applied to the data controllers, namely the Election Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) and the General Election Commission (KPU), with regard to the regional elections (Pilkada).
