Jakarta. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo wants his government to harness the power of technology when delivering services to the citizens -- a move popularly known as “e-government”.

Indonesia today is building the national data center -- a facility that will integrate existing government data that are currently spread across different centers and servers. The national data center, which is still under construction, lies on the Jakarta outskirts of Cikarang. The government also plans to replicate the data center in Batam and Indonesia’s future capital Nusantara.

“[The national data center] is incredibly pivotal. It would be impossible for us to build an e-government, but we store the data somewhere else, like in a company. That could lead to data leaks and we could get sued,” Riant Nugroho, the chairman of the Indonesian Public Policy Society (Makpi), told a recent BTV talk show.

“This is the same as implementing the 1945 Constitution which says that our responsibility is to protect the ‘blood’ of Indonesia. In today’s context, ‘blood’ does not mean land or water territories. But they also include data that is now being safeguarded by the government,” Riant said.

Riant, however, admitted that the government could have built the national data center sooner. However, this can be a blessing in disguise as the government can adopt the latest technologies.

“Digital public services have four success indicators that we have to meet. They have to be faster, cheaper, better, and smarter,” Riant said.

Speaking at the same talk show, Derry Tanti Wijaya, the co-director of Data & Democracy Research Hub, said that the national data center marked a huge progress in Indonesia’s e-government dreams. This national data center can also pave the way for data centralization.

“Centralized data can lead to more data-driven decision-making. This [national data center] also comes with data standardization.  Some regions [in Indonesia] can advance further than others because they have all the necessary data. We [the government] can adopt data-driven decision-making with centralized data,” Derry said.

“Data is the new currency. In fact, it is no longer just a ‘currency’. But it is the last frontier of colonization. We need to have our very own data center that is managed by our own nation,” Derry said.

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