Lawyers for Liberty said as it stands, the government is exempted from liability under the PDPA.

Its director Zaid Malek said this exemption means data collected by Padu can be disseminated or used by the government beyond its declared purpose of enabling targeted subsidies.

“There have been cases of misuse of data by the government before where personal data was used to disseminate propaganda by way of SMS to the public,” he said in a statement.

Zaid added that the government had “a bad track record of data protection”, citing the numerous reports of data being stolen from multiple government agencies and exposing users to scams and data fraud.

And because the government is exempted from liability under the PDPA, there is no legal recourse.

“This puts the public in a terrible disadvantage and danger of loss and damage.”

Zaid said it is not enough for the government to give “verbal assurances” that the data collected under Padu will be protected.

“There is a need for an immediate amendment to the PDPA to place responsibility and liability on the government, as well as the agencies responsible, for the protection and security of the data collected,” he said.

Zaid added that there must be a system in place for public inquiries in case of data breaches so that those who are affected can be informed of the breach and take necessary action against those responsible for it.

Yesterday, government spokesman Fahmi Fadzil assured the public that security concerns surrounding Padu were being monitored, adding that there was no need for the authorities to suspend the registration of Padu users.

Fahmi was responding to concerns by former Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming, who called for the registration of Padu users to be suspended until concerns over security issues were resolved.

The DAP man claimed that those who did not register with Padu could see others using their identity cards and postcodes to “register your IC on your behalf”. He said this was because registration for Padu accounts was done prior to e-KYC approval (electronic means of verifying a customer’s identity), which he claimed needed three days to complete.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim launched Padu on Tuesday to serve as a central database for the rollout of targeted subsidies, one of the government’s priorities for 2024.

In a Facebook post, Anwar said the government had spent more than RM100 billion on programmes for the needy as well as subsidies, much of which had been lost due to “wastage and leakage”.

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