Govt wants more power to compel social media firms to reveal user data

PARLIAMENT | Putrajaya is seeking a legal amendment that will compel social media platform providers into revealing data about their users upon police request.

Deputy Communications Minister Teo Nie Ching told the Dewan Rakyat that the ministry plans to table a bill to amend the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, or Act 588, in December to achieve this.

“In the amendment for Act 588, one of the items being proposed would be to introduce a new section that will give more enforcement power.

“It will allow a police officer, or any officer who is given such power, to compel anyone in control of a communications system to reveal their data according to specified methods.

“We believe that, if this new section is passed by this Dewan Rakyat, we will have the power, police will have the power to ask platform providers to reveal data of their account users.

“This will hopefully help to smoothen the police investigation process,” she said during the oral question-and-answer session this morning.

The Kulai MP was responding to a supplementary question from Afnan Hamimi Taib Azamudden (PN-Alor Setar) on how the government plans to control the spread of fake news by those using bogus social media accounts.

Out of control

According to Afnan, such unscrupulous activities seemed to be out of control as authorities are usually unable to trace the real identity of those responsible.

The deputy minister admitted that the government found it challenging to combat fake news.

Hence, social media platforms have to be stricter when registering new users, Teo added.

“We understand that there is a challenge in identifying those behind these fake accounts.

“This is why it is important for us to make platform providers such as Meta, Bytedance and Google tighten their rules when it comes to registering new users. Such as making it mandatory for users to provide their phone number when registering an account.

“If there is no such effort, then it would be really hard for us to trace those behind fake accounts,” Teo said.

Activist appeals to quash part of offensive online comment law

Ministry hopes to present CMA amendments in this sitting

MCMC seeks to balance challenges in regulating social media

MCMC: Licensing of social media providers to ensure users' safety

Social media sites fail to keep under-13s off, minister says

COMMENT | Stop silencing rakyat using new laws