Indonesian president orders government app development to stop – The Register

Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Monday ordered government officials to stop developing new apps.

According to the president, Indonesia’s central and regional governments together operate a fleet of 27,000 applications, many of which overlap or are not integrated. New platforms are often developed each time a new minister, governor or civil servant takes office. A ministry is accused of operating more than 500 different applications.

The proliferation of applications is more than confusing and bureaucratic: it is expensive. This year alone, governments have requested 6.2 trillion rupees ($386.3 million) in the budget for the development of new applications.

“The presence of bureaucracy should serve, not complicate things and not slow things down,” the president said, telling officials they need to integrate both applications and data.

“There can no longer be excuses for this and that because I feel that the data belongs to me, the data belongs to my ministry, the data belongs to my institution, the data belongs to my regional government – ​​this is no longer allowed,” he said. commanded.

The battle cry against app proliferation was raised at a launch ceremony for INA Digital, an integrated platform for government services that is expected to help contain problematic platform proliferation when it launches in September.

INA Digital is one of the projects managed by a category or division called GovTech. Its integration of national digital services will start with nine focus areas, according to local media: health services, education, social assistance, digital identity based on demographics, One Data Indonesia services, financial transactions, portal service integration, state apparatus services, and online driving license.

Its ultimate goal is familiar to observers of digital government services: providing citizens with a single identifier to access government services through a portal, while agencies all share access to a single set of personal data. ®