The Indonesian government-backed internet security committee will officially start work in March next year to protect the country's Internet infrastructure from cyber crime, Director General of Posts and Telecommunications Basuki Yusuf Iskandar said.

The committee's work would not interfere with the privacy of Internet users as monitoring would only be conducted in respect of internet protocol (IP) transactions, rather than content.

"Even though the committee is sponsored by the government, it will work as an independent body and its members include IT experts, academics and professionals," the Jakarta Post daily on Thursday quoted Basuki as saying.

The committee, which was established in September and is officially called the "Indonesian Information Infrastructure Security Incident Response Committee" (Id Sirtii), will be responsible for monitoring and recording all internet-based communications and transactions as part of the effort to curb cyber crime in the country, which has one of the highest incidences in the world for this sort of crime.

"This information can be used as evidence to support the efforts of our law enforcement agencies in combating cyber crime, not to mention piracy," Basuki said here on Wednesday.

Based on the ministerial decree establishing the committee, the National Police and the Attorney General's Office will also have representatives on the committee and will launch investigations should the information obtained by the committee indicate the commission of a crime.

The latest figures from the Asia-Pacific Network Information Center show that Indonesia has the highest level of cyber crime in the Asia-Pacific region, including carding, hacking, phishing (the practice of using e-mails to trick consumers into handing over personal information), and money laundering.

As a result, Indonesia has been sidelined by global internet vendors. An estimated 50 billion U.S. dollars in goods and services are sold over the Internet every year.

In order to restore international trust in Indonesia, the government has called upon all telecommunications operators, and network access and internet service providers to support the committee in its work.

"Everybody using the Internet, including corporations, must compile their log files within the set period of time so that if we need them to verify the commission of a crime, we can find the data we require," Basuki said. "In addition, Internet kiosks must record the identities of their customers so that we can trace those who use the Internet for criminal purposes."

Source: Xinhua