Jakarta (ANTARA) - The House of Representatives has appealed to citizens to protect two types of personal data—general and specific personal—in order to prevent data misuse or abuse by irresponsible people.

"The two types of data that must be protected, first being personal data of a general nature, including full name, gender, nationality, religion, and data combined to identify a person," Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and Coordinator for the Political and Security Sector, Lodewijk F. Paulus, said during the ‘Merajut Nusantara (Weaving Indonesia)’ webinar.

The webinar themed "Maintaining Privacy and Personal Data Security in the Digital Space" was accessed from here on Monday.

Meanwhile, specific personal data comprises medical information, biometric data regarding fingerprints, irises, facial features, height, genetic data, data on sex life or orientation, political views, criminal records, data on children, and personal financial data.

Paulus also outlined some measures that could be taken by everyone to protect their personal data in cyberspace.

First, it is necessary for people to use separate accounts for personal and public matters, he said. Second, people must check and configure the privacy settings upon downloading any application.

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"Always check the terms and conditions every time you download applications and reconfigure data access permissions according to our comfort (or convenience). For example, being asked (by the application) whether or not your location (can be accessed). There are questions like that when we use the application," he explained.

Third, people must create strong passwords that are difficult to guess and activate the verification feature to log in to accounts in order to further protect their personal data in cyberspace.

By activating the login verification feature, people can be alerted if someone tries to access their personal accounts, such as social media accounts, he added.

Paulus also reminded everyone to avoid sharing their real-time location so that it is more difficult for stalkers to determine their whereabouts. People must also be cautious when asked to visit unknown or suspicious web addresses because criminals could use them to misuse their victims' personal data.

People are expected to always maintain the secrecy of the pins or passwords to all their devices or personal accounts.

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Translator: Tri Meilani A, Mecca Yumna
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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