Cyber Security and Big Data Protection: The Digital Acceleration In The Midst of Pandemic

Yogyakarta, September 25th 2021─The International Relations Students Corps (KOMAHI) Fisipol UGM held an online discussion called IRCCT with the title of “Cyber Security and Big Data Protection: The Digital Acceleration In The Midst of Pandemic”. On this occasion, there are two speakers which are Beltsazar Kristeya, Researcher and Head of Knowledge Management Unit at Center for Strategic and International Studies and Perdana Karim, Researcher Assistant of Center for Digital Society (CfDS) Fisipol UGM. The discussion was attended by 41 participants and talked about the importance of digital data protection from various perspectives such as it’s policies, societal aspect, and the development of the issue during the pandemic. Moderated by Marsha Phoebe, a student of the Department of International Relations, this event was divided into two sessions which are the sharing and the question and answer session. 

The sharing session was started by Beltsazar Kristeya with a material titled Cyberspace Fragmentation. In his explanation, he said that there are various problems in cyberspace as of now, starting from the problem of data protection, online lending, and the problem of state’s sovereignty. Unfortunately, these complex arrays of problems are only known as cyber security when in reality in cyberspace there is a complex and layered fragmentation. The policy structure for these fragmentations are also different according to the institution that handles it. 

Next, the first sharing session is followed by the second sharing session by Perdana Karim who talked about data security under the titleThe Future of Cybersecurity and Personal Data Protection”. In his explanation, Karim said that data protection in Indonesia is far from secure. There are a lot of data leaks in Indonesia’s media platform that shows the lack of the government’s commitment in solving the problem. Other than that, society’s awareness about the importance of data and how to secure it is also low, so this only worsens the problem of Indonesia’s data security. 

In his closing statement, Karim said that we should talk more about the importance of data protection in our own community. As a student, by talking about data protection in our day to day life, we can help spread the information and raise the awareness towards data protection that is still low in Indonesia. Through these simple steps, hopefully change can arise in order to increase cyber data protection in Indonesia.