Govt to use data from depts, agencies amid low registration in Padu

Fahmi Fadzil stressed the need for Malaysians to register with the Central Database Hub, as current data gathered from departments and agencies could be outdated. (Bernama pic)

The government spokesman said as of Feb 15, the number of people who had updated their information in the Padu system was 3.43 million, equivalent to only 10% of the country’s population.

“We now have five weeks left for Padu registration.

“At the same time, as said by the chief statistician, we have collected data across 217 departments and agencies, involving around 30.07 million Malaysians.

“This will serve as a basis to initiate considerations regarding policies and programmes the government can make,” he told reporters during the launching of the Maxis-Huawei 5G advanced trial showcase at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.

On Monday, Lim Chee Han, a policy researcher for the non-profit organisation Third World Network, said the low number of registrants was not due to a lack of information on Padu, but the difficulty in persuading people, especially those from the T20 and M40 income groups who know they are not eligible for targeted subsidies, to sign up.

He said people also remained sceptical of the initiative, despite efforts by ministers and the media to spread the message that Padu’s primary goal is to help the government deliver targeted subsidies.

He said the lack of enthusiasm was due to the notion that the government already possesses their information from participating government agencies and ministries.

However, Fahmi stressed the need for Malaysians to register with Padu, as current data gathered from departments and agencies could be outdated.

He also sought to allay doubts on the database’s security, saying that the National Cyber Security Agency, CyberSecurity Malaysia and the personal data protection department had helped assess its cybersecurity.

He said the data would also be handled well, as Padu will be managed by the statistics department.

On a separate matter, Fahmi said a mechanism was needed to address cases of copyright infringement in the media industry and the plagiarism of published content by other entities without the publisher’s permission.

“This is one of the reasons news can be altered and misinterpreted.

“We may need a mechanism where the owner of the news content can file a complaint, and then MCMC, for example, can take action,” he said, referring to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.