Digital Minister Gobind Singh Deo has proposed the establishment of a Data Commission in Malaysia as there’s an urgent need to protect people’s data and promote the use of data centres.
The minister said there’s a need for a data governance framework as Malaysia aims to be a regional tech hub capable of attracting significant data centre investments from tech giants such as Google, Microsoft and ByteDance.
He added that the question arises whether Malaysia has sufficient policies and legal frameworks to protect data and to outline policies to encourage data use while ensuring security. Gobind shared that Malaysia currently has a Data Committee and a Data Commissioner under the Personal Data Protection Act 2010 (PDPA) to cover data protection but there’s no dedicated Data Commission with wider authority to regulate the data landscape.
Gobind proposes the government turn the commissioner into a commission so that it can focus on data aspects, which he believes is very important moving forward.
To establish the commission, his ministry plans to amend the PDPA 2010, which is currently expected to be tabled in Parliament as early as March 2025 to further strengthen data security.
There have been several data breaches involving government agencies in the past few years. The lack of accountability creates a trust deficit among the public when it comes to data protection and security on government-run platforms. As Malaysia aims to digitalise government services, there have been calls to amend the PDPA to hold government agencies accountable for data breaches. The PDPA in its current form doesn’t apply to the Federal Government and State Governments under Section 3.
[ SOURCE 2 3, IMAGE SOURCE ]
