Govt devising regulation on tracing accounts linked to online gambling

Jakarta (ANTARA) – Director general of informatics applications at the Communication and Informatics Ministry, Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan, said that a new regulation will authorize the ministry to trace financial accounts linked to online gambling and propose to block them.

The draft of Government Regulation Number 71 of 2019 concerning the Implementation of Electronic Systems and Transactions, which will grant the ministry this authority, is currently being prepared for revision, he added.

“We can have the authority to apply for blocking financial accounts, whether bank accounts or e-wallets (digital wallets) used to accommodate gambling transactions,” he informed on Friday.

Pangerapan said that so far, the ministry’s actions have been limited to blocking domains and IP addresses of sites or applications related to online gambling.

However, these steps have been considered insufficient to tackle the problem and additional action is needed, such as tracing and blocking funding channels, he said.

Pangerapan elaborated that the main target of the financial account blocking will be the bookie’s account. By identifying key accounts, it is hoped that gambling transactions can be suppressed.

The ministry will play a role in tracing financial accounts used to deposit online gambling transactions, he said.

Meanwhile, the authority to block financial accounts will remain with Bank Indonesia (BI) and the Financial Services Authority (OJK).

Pangerapan informed that digital wallets will also be an important target since the provisions of the Personal Data Protection Law (PDP) require platforms, such as digital wallet providers, to record or verify account owners.

This new phenomenon shows that official financial accounts are often used for illegal activities without the owner’s knowledge. Thus, caution is needed in data collection by digital wallet operators.

“We have to be careful with e-wallet organizers in registering data. Users must be verified when opening an e-wallet account,” he said.

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