Jakarta – The Indonesian Press Council condemned Friday state-owned telecommunication services provider PT Telkom for giving the text messaging records of a journalist to law enforcement official.
Earlier this week, Jakarta Police summoned Tempo magazine journalist Metta Dharmasaputra for questioning concerning a tax fraud case after getting his text messaging records from PT Telkom.
The record contains messages sent between Metta and Vincentius Amin Santoso, a former employee of oil and fats producer PT Asian Agri, who provided information to Metta about the tax fraud.
Vincentius and his two colleagues, Hendry Susilo and Agustinus Ferry Sutanto, were sentenced last August to 11 years in prison for money laundering by the West Jakarta District Court.
"Telkom should explain to us why they gave such information to law enforcers but then declined to mention the reason. We are afraid that if it could happen to a journalist, it could then happen to anyone," Indonesian Press Council member Abdulah Alamudi told a press conference Friday.
He said PT Telkom would only be justified in giving information to officers under strict investigation conditions.
Alamudi said the Press Council would invite all parties involved to explain their part in the case and then the council would hold a plenary meeting before they issued recommendations.
The telecommunications law, along with article 87 of Government Regulation No. 52/2000 on Telecommunications, requires an official written request from law enforcement authorities before either text- or voice-based records can be released.
The 1999 Telecommunications Law stipulates that telecommunications providers must release information records to investigators conducting investigations of special criminal activities under an official request made by the appointed investigators, the Attorney General or the chief of the National Police.
According to article 42 of the telecommunications law, the special criminal activities include trafficking in psychotropic and narcotic drugs, corruption and other criminal activities that carry prison sentences of more than five years.
Vice president of the public and marketing communications division of PT Telkom Eddy Kurnia denied allegations that Telkom had violated the law by giving the information to the investigators, saying it had already complied with the proper regulations.
He added that the company had consulted its legal division before granting the request. "We decided to give the information because we had received an official request from law officers," he said.
A law expert from the University of Indonesia, Indriyanto Seno Aji, said PT Telkom and the law enforcers had obviously violated the telecommunications law as tax fraud was not classified as a special crime under the Criminal Code.
Article 57 of the telecommunications law stipulates that telecommunications service providers that violate the obligation to guarantee a subscriber's privacy face a maximum of two years in prison and/or a maximum fine of Rp 200 million (US$21,327).
"Telkom had no right to give the text message record to investigators even though they had an official request letter because tax fraud is simply not classified under special crimes," he told The Jakarta Post.