The Importance of Personal Data Protection Act for The Protection of Digital Society in Indonesia

The era of technological disruption is marked by massive use of digital services and devices which always require submission of personal data free of charge. Digital companies can use personal data to identify behavior of their users freely without supervision. This is exacerbated by vulnerability of personal data protection due to hacking, mining or misuse of personal data, as happened with Facebook, Yahoo, Tokopedia, Bukalapak. In this phase, government has to active to provide protection which in Indonesian context is realized through formation of PDP Act as mandated by 1945 Constitution of Indonesia. This research intends to examine importance of PDP Act and its developments in Indonesia for digital society protection. This normative-empirical research uses primary data (observations and interviews) and secondary data (regulation searches and textual literature) that are processed qualitatively by content analysis. The idea of protecting personal data originates from recognition of the right to privacy that has developed and been institutionalized in various legal documents, both national, regional and international. In Indonesia, prior to enactment of PDP Act, personal data protection arrangements were scattered sporadically and sectoral which caused personal data protection to not be optimal. PDP Act complements and refines previous regulations to provide certainty for protection of personal data in Indonesia. The existence of PDP Act gives important meaning as a manifestation of state's commitment to provide protection, guarantee order and security of digital society, optimize law enforcement and reform personal data processing practices and encourage changes in society's culture to respect personal data.