SHAH ALAM – The Communications and Digital Ministry today assured that the National Digital Identity or Digital ID project will not jeopardise the security of Malaysians’ personal data.

Its minister Fahmi Fadzil said the initiative undertaken by Mimos Bhd, in collaboration with several other agencies, has been used in several countries, such as Estonia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“There were claims that certain countries refused to implement it, but many countries have done so because of its numerous benefits. It will also reduce costs for application development.

“... (once implemented) the data of the Malaysian people will be safe from being stolen by malicious parties. Therefore, the issue of personal data security can be controlled,” he said in response to allegations on social media that the project would compromise the security of personal data.

Fahmi earlier officiated the Malaysia-Japan Digital Transformation and Innovation Seminar 2023 at the Management dan Science University today.

Elaborating, Fahmi said the initiative and policy are not something new but were announced in 2021.

“It is a policy to standardise, especially the ‘sign-in’ process across ministries, as we see that each ministry will have its own applications and registrations, which led to the information or database being held by many parties. That’s why we want to have the single sign-in registration in addition to solving security issues,” he said.

Prior to this, the media reported that the government had approved an initial allocation of RM80 million for the development of the National Digital ID project as an effort to expedite the implementation of the self-verification platform, which is believed to be able to further enhance the efficiency of public services. – Bernama, November 27, 2023