S’wak govt’s hesitance on Padu registration for the good of its people, says Tiang

SIBU: The Sarawak government’s reservation on the Central Database Hub (Padu) is for the good of its people and not done at its whims and fancies, said Datuk Michael Tiang.

The Deputy Minister of Public Health, Housing and Local Government explained that the state government offers no legal protection to its own people if it encourages them to register for Padu.

He said under Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) 2010, any corporate personnel and private entity that collects personal data from the public have the responsibility to protect the data gathered.

“If there is a breach, the person or group affected can sue the relevant party collecting the data.

“But under Section 3 of PDPA 2010, there is nothing mentioned about the federal or state government.

“In other words, if there is data leak or breach by a government agency or if they failed to protect the data, there is no legal protection provided for the public.

“Government agencies have no legal responsibilities to protect the data. This (Sarawak government reservation) is not something that came out of its whim and fancy as it (data breach) had happened to Socso and Election Commission before.

“The same goes with the federal side. They never said how they’re going to protect people’s data.

“As such, the Sarawak government thinks that we should not rush into registering for Padu,” he told reporters when met after presenting certificates of appointment to seven Chinese community leaders and ‘ketua kaum’ at Sibu District Office here yesterday.

Present at the event were Temenggong Dato Vincent Lau and Sibu district officer Khalid Andong.

Tiang also opined that it is irresponsible for the federal government to tell the people that they may not get government subsidies or assistance if they do not register for Padu.

“I do not think the federal government should say that without registering for Padu, the people may not get subsidies.

“That is irresponsible. It is too early to say that kind of thing because it caused a great alarm and concern to the people especially my constituents.

“They came to me and asked how and what to do if they do not register for Padu,” he said.

Tiang said he personally disagrees with the distribution of assistance and welfare aid from the federal government to be based on Padu.

“At the moment, be it federal or state level welfare agencies, we have quite a complete database of those needy in the B40 and M40 groups.

“We can continue to use these present and current data to distribute welfare benefits to the people.

“The federal government said if the people do not register for Padu, they do not get it. But as far as we know, only 20 per cent of the people have registered for Padu.

“How can they compare their database to our welfare agency which has been compiled over decades?

“We have a better and more complete database to distribute welfare aid to those in need.

“Padu (implementation) is too early, too uncertain on legal aspects and the size of the database,” he said.