Personal data will be tightly controlled under national Digital ID, says Fahmi

PETALING JAYA: Fahmi Fadzil has assured that the security of personal data in the Digital Identity (Digital ID) will be closely monitored. The Communications and Digital Minister stated that this can be achieved by providing a module that can be utilized by all ministries, and subsequently by the private sector as well. “With this module, we need not worry about the security aspects of Digital ID,” he told reporters after the Malaysia-Japan Digital Transformation and Innovation Seminar on Monday (Nov 27).

Fahmi also revealed that he had directed the Information Department and the pertinent ministries to improve the clarity of the explanations about the Digital ID. “Many people claim that in certain countries, they don’t want to embrace digital identity, but many countries have,” he said, citing examples such as Estonia, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“This initiative has involved collaborative efforts from Mimos Berhad, with the cooperation of agencies such as the National Cyber Security Agency (Nacsa), CyberSecurity Malaysia, and the National Security Council,” he added.

Furthermore, Fahmi highlighted numerous benefits, such as cost reduction for application development and enhanced security of the rakyat’s data from being stolen by malicious parties. He also dismissed conspiracy theories surrounding the digital ID as false, emphasizing that the initiative was not new.

“This is not a new effort or policy, it was announced before by the (former) home minister Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainudin in 2021, it was a policy for us especially to standardize the sign-in process across ministries,” he explained. In 2021, when Hamzah introduced the Digital ID initiative, it was reported that the planning and implementation process was to begin in 2021 and it would be fully implemented by 2024.

Fahmi was present at the Malaysia-Japan Digital Transformation and Innovation Seminar at MSU, where he emphasized the importance of delving deeper into the soft initiatives advocated and organized by the administration to understand how these policies have been successfully implemented in neighboring countries. For example, Singapore has a single sign-in system.

He urged the government to address issues relating to fake IDs and scammers by looking at the Digital ID initiative and ensuring a better understanding of digital transformation.