Digital certificates are Indonesia’s weapon against land mafia

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JAKARTA (ANTARA) – While the economy is growing, Indonesia still faces problems with land status and ownership, for which people are asking the state to provide them with legal certainty over their land so that they can use their assets without worries.

As the economy develops steadily and all industries flourish, land prices also rise. In this situation, legal protection is essential so that landowners do not have to worry about their assets being seized by criminals.

But the fact is that Indonesian citizens are still not free from land issues such as disputes, dual ownership and land mafia practices. In addition, public figures such as comedian Adjigo had to have his parents’ house demolished after losing in court.

Also, Dino Patti Djalal, a state dignitary and former deputy foreign minister, clashed with land mafia trying to seize his parents’ assets. In this case, the National Police (Polri) arrested the land criminals and brought them to their knees before justice.

In addition, some infrastructure construction projects have also been hampered due to unclear property rights among asset heirs and difficulties in compensating for land use rights.

In response to such problems, India’s Ministry of Land and Spatial Planning (ATR) has begun to gradually digitize all land certificates to reduce the chances of people forging certificates.

I Ketut Gede Ary Sucaya, an official at the Land Registration Department, said Indonesian land mafia has been using fake certificates that look authentic to achieve their goals. Therefore, the government has taken measures to strengthen digitization to make it easier for people to assess the authenticity of certificates.

Digitizing certificates would allow the landowner’s name to be not only engraved on the physical certificate, but also recorded in a digital database, so that people would need both physical and digital means to prove their ownership of the land.

Digitization can also prevent data loss due to events such as fire, which can lead to the complete destruction of all documents, including stored certificates. By digitizing land certificates, people can protect their valuable documents from physical loss as they can manage the relevant data digitally through their computers or smartphones.

Not all citizens are willing to digitize their certificates, although some still believe that the digital format will make it easier for irresponsible parties to misuse the certificates. With this in mind, the government must make people aware of the benefits of digitizing certificates.

Data Security

To successfully implement the credential digitization plan, the government needs to convince residents that their data is protected, but this is a bit tricky because some government agencies have had their data hacked in the past, leading to a decline in public trust.

Despite this, Pratama Persadha, a cybersecurity expert at the National Intelligence Institute (STIN), expressed support for the government’s efforts to digitize public services.

In this regard, the expert stressed the importance of coordination between the ATR Ministry and the State Bureau of Cyber and Cryptography (BSSN) to ensure that the digitization of land certificates is not compromised by cyber attacks, such as the one launched on the Temporary National Data Center 2 last June.

People’s readiness and the availability of relevant regulations are seen as prerequisites for Indonesia’s success in its in-depth digital transformation efforts.

Indonesia should learn a valuable lesson about cybersecurity from Estonia, where a major cyberattack by Russian hackers crippled the Baltic nation’s banking and telecommunications networks in April 2007.

Persada, who is currently chairman of the Communications and Information Systems Security Research Center (CISSReC), believes that the Indonesian government must further expand internet coverage to cover more rural areas in order to successfully digitize land certificates.

Of Indonesia’s approximately 280 million people, approximately 11 million do not have adequate access to the Internet, an important tool for enabling citizens to access digital public services, including those related to agricultural matters, anytime, anywhere.

The expert also stressed the need to pay more attention to budget allocation for the maintenance of digital systems, saying that such budget should be considered an investment to guarantee protection from cyber attacks.

Synchronization steps

Another key to the successful completion of the agricultural digitalization mission is good synergy between the ATR Ministry, the General Directorate of Population and Civil Registration (BSSN) of the Ministry of Interior, and other relevant stakeholders.

Inspector General of the ATR Department Raden Bagus Widjayanto said during the focus group discussion that it was not possible for his office to digitize land certificates unilaterally, noting that collaboration was key to transparency and accountability.

He explained that the ATR Ministry is working with the Ministry of Interior to verify data on land owned by individuals and with the Ministry of Law and Human Rights to verify data on land belonging to legal entities.

The official then stressed the importance of improving the quality of human resources to support the digitalisation initiatives. In this regard, the ATR Ministry has designated over 500 of its offices as corruption-free and integrity zones.

Efforts to improve the quality of human resources are expected to produce more reliable officials who can implement certificate digitization initiatives quickly and responsibly, ultimately earning the public’s trust.

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