DPR Passes One Data Indonesia Law Covering AI and Data Sovereignty

Indonesia now has a law meant to make government data speak a common language, and artificial intelligence is written into it. The House of Representatives (DPR) passed the One Data Indonesia (Satu Data Indonesia, SDI) bill into law at a plenary session chaired by Speaker Puan Maharani at the parliament complex in Senayan, Jakarta, on Tuesday, October 6, Kompas.com reported. Every faction voted in favour.

Sturman Panjaitan, deputy chair of the DPR’s Legislation Body (Baleg), told the plenary that the government had submitted 1,338 problem inventory items on the body of the bill and 829 on its elucidation. After working through them, the drafting committee settled on a text of 20 chapters and 141 articles.

At its centre is National Basic Data (Data Dasar Nasional), controlled by the state, which is to become the main reference for development planning, fiscal policy and budgeting, the distribution of social assistance and other strategic needs. The law creates an SDI agency answerable to the President and divides data responsibilities from the central government down to villages. It sets rules on data standards, metadata, reference codes and master data, a national data catalogue and interoperability, and it brings the use of digital technology, blockchain and AI within its scope. Kompas did not detail the specific AI provisions.

What it means in practice

Some clauses carry real weight for companies building AI and cloud services. Access to, and transfer of, closed data outside Indonesia’s jurisdiction will require the DPR’s approval. Data operators must report incidents within 24 hours, and the law provides for security audits, data sovereignty audits, administrative sanctions and criminal provisions. That reporting window will sharpen the case for BSSN’s call for data centres to form incident response teams.

For public-sector AI, the promise is cleaner inputs. Projects such as the Home Affairs Ministry’s AI-assisted verification of social aid recipients depend on consistent records across agencies, and a single reference dataset could reduce mismatches. The law also arrives alongside Komdigi’s draft presidential rules on an AI roadmap and ethics, so developers will be watching how the two frameworks fit together.

Much now depends on implementing regulations. What to watch: when the SDI agency is formed and who leads it, how the DPR approval requirement for cross-border transfers will work in practice, and what the rules ultimately say about AI systems that draw on national basic data.