In contrast to various neighbouring countries and various Western democracies, the collection and use of citizen’s data remains largely unregulated in Indonesia. Civil society groups are pushing for a Private Data Protection Law to be passed, but this will not be in place prior to April’s legislative and presidential elections, in which political candidates and parties are expected to use big data to more effectively target their campaigns.

In this week's Talking Indonesia podcast, Dr Dave McRae discusses these issues with Wahyudi Djafar, Deputy Director for Research at The Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy, ELSAM . Freedom of expression and privacy is one of ELSAM’s focus areas.

Today’s episode is the second in the “Policy in Focus” series of Talking Indonesia episodes, supported by the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI), a partnership between the Australian and Indonesian governments that aims to improve the use of evidence in development policymaking. This series will appear periodically in alternate weeks to the regular Talking Indonesia episodes. The views expressed in this podcast episode do not represent the views of the Australian or Indonesian governments.

Photo credit: Irwansyah Putra for AntaraFoto

The Talking Indonesia podcast is co-hosted by Dr Dave McRae from the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, Dr Jemma Purdey from Monash University, Dr Charlotte Setijadi from the Singapore Management University and Dr Dirk Tomsa from La Trobe University.