STATE COOPERATION ESSENTIAL TO ENSURE SUCCESS OF MALAYSIA DIGITAL - GOBIND

KUCHING, May 16 (Bernama) -- The Digital Ministry aims to ensure that all government services can be accessed through a national digital platform in line with the Malaysia Digital initiative, said its Minister, Gobind Singh Deo.

He said the approach requires close cooperation between the federal government and state governments, especially in the aspect of secure and orderly data sharing.

“In the past few weeks, I have visited Penang, Selangor and this time Sarawak to see for myself the readiness of the states to implement digital transformation.

“We see that many states have successfully digitised their respective services, so now we want to establish cooperation so that there is no need to repeat the same process at the central level,” he said at a press conference after a visit to the Sarawak Information Systems Sdn Bhd (SAINS) office here, today.

Gobind said Penang and Selangor have expressed their willingness to cooperate with the Federal government in terms of data sharing.

Meanwhile, Sarawak, he said, also showed positive feedback after a discussion session this morning with Premier Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg.

“We passed the Data Sharing Bill in Parliament in December last year and it came into effect in April.

"But this law only involves data between federal government agencies. Therefore, we encourage state governments to create similar bills to enable data sharing is done comprehensively," he said.

According to him, data is an important element in the use of technology and artificial intelligence (AI), hence the security aspects and procedures for data use need to be detailed in each legal framework.

"We want the data shared to only be used for permitted purposes and fully protected in security aspects. This is what we have clearly stated in the law at the central level," he said.

Gobind said he would continue his series of visits to other states, including the Bukit Jalil Command Centre on Monday, to assess the level of digitalisation and potential for comprehensive cooperation.

"We hope that after this there will be a national legal framework that allows data sharing between the federal government, state governments and local governments," he said.

-- BERNAMA