e-KTP system will attract political use, minister says

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sun, 05/15/2011

Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi admits that the availability of electronic identification cards (e-KTP) will be taken advantage of by political, business and advertising interests alike.

“Yes, of course. They will take advantage of it,” he said Friday, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

In preparation of the e-KTP system, the ministry will create a database of citizen information such as addresses, family members, age, jobs and education. There will be a total of 27 data item stored in the database, which will maintain the most up-to-date information.

The data will be renewed when citizens go to record their fingerprints at the sub-district level, where citizens will be asked to re-check the accuracy of their data.

According to Gamawan, this data will potentially attract the interest of various parties.

For politicians the data would data would help them identify and locate potential voters.

"Even advertisers will take advantage of the data because he will then know where to advertise using this data,” Gamawan said.

However, Gamawan explained that it will not be easy to access the data, as it will only be accessible through official requests to the ministry.

"There has to be permission from the Home Affairs Minister," he said. "There is no chance the data will be accessed for advertising purposes."