Need to tread PADU very carefully

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Our banking data will not be included in PADU database as the Banking and Financial Institutions Act 1989 (BAFIA) does not permit the use of such data by anyone. All data remains governed by the existing acts of the respective government departments or agencies.

– i3investor.com

Someone I know said PADU is the ideal tool for dictatorship. So, I started to do some research on why this statement feels right.

The Pangkalan Data Utama (PADU) was developed in just seven months through a collaboration between the Ministry of Economy, the Department of Statistics (DOSM), and the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit. Apparently, this new Central Database Hub will be used by the government to get a clearer picture of the national household income and it claims that PADU will allow it to distribute ‘targeted’ subsidies, especially the RON 96 petrol subsidy to be implemented by middle of 2024. 

Somehow PADU is also supposed to help the government make a more informed decision when it comes to policy-making. What kind of informed policy-making that could not be done in the 60 years of ruling Malaysia – where looking back to my father’s time, people actually lived happier and less costlier lives where an entire family could live on the income of just the father, and send kids to school, and buy a house and car and live comfortably?

The data for the centralised database is said to be sourced from over 400 government agencies as well as other related organisations although PADU’s data gathering will supposedly not involve bank information systems.

My first question is, if you already have the data from over 400 government agencies, why do you need people to come and sign up for it?

My second question is, why is PADU exempt from being sued if there is a leakage and breach in the data if it is then used from something else? Those who have registered with the Central Database Hub (PADU) cannot claim damages or sue the government in the event of a breach and data leak. Why?

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“PADU is an initiative by a federal government agency to collect personal data from all citizens across the country to build a complete central database,” said State Deputy Public Health, Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Michael Tiang. “The federal and state governments are exempted from PDPA 2010, which means the public has no legal provisions as protection if any government agency causes personal data to be leaked or fails to protect such data.”

This lack of legal recourse for citizens whose data is compromised was one reason why the Sarawak government adopted its current stance on PADU registration. Tiang said Section 3 of the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) 2010 clearly states that the legislation does not apply to the federal and state governments.

“This was why no party has ever sued the government or any of its agencies in this area”, he added.

My third question is, why are you doing targeted subsidies for petrol? What is the purpose of that? It is so undemocratic and divisive. Petronas already brings in huge resources from sales of oil and gas, which goes back to the government.

We are taxed and taxed and taxed on everything from property buying and selling, to service for food in restaurants, to any sales commissions we make, to inheritance, to roads that we use, to cars that we use on the roads that we are taxed for,  GST (which has been increased without asking our permission), to houses that we own and all this tax is on money that is already been taxed from personal tax and corporate tax.

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There must be billions or trillions being collected in taxes every year. We don’t have that many public hospitals, roads, or anything being built on a yearly basis, so there is so much surplus money with the government.

Now they want to reduce the petrol subsidy? And target it? And for that, they have spent MORE money creating a probably multimillion dollar platform to collect personal data, where they cannot be sued if that data is leaked for all the wrong purposes?

Something is very wrong here. And what is wrong is that we have become a nation of unquestioning slaves to a civil service. Go back and read the actual term for government – ‘civil service’. It is not Lord and Ruler. Or Feudal Lord. Where people are ‘given’ little bits of land to till the land unquestioningly for their Lords and pay a big part of their earnings back or else they get jailed or punished. Oh wait, it does seem like that doesn’t it ?

My hesitance with PADU is this seems a bit too similar to the whole Covid fiasco, where people were pushed and forced to vaccinate with strange, untested mRNA vaccines through fear (and shame and ridicule for those who did not want to) because of a flu that had 99 per cent recovery rates (just like normal flus anyway, which happen every year as the statistics show. What was interesting is when Covid statistics were at an all-time high, flu statistics were at all-time low. If one does the maths, one will start seeing the anomalies.)

Thousands and thousands of people are now dying from that today, and there is an awakening globally of the carnage that has been committed by those in authority who pushed it through knowingly or unknowingly.

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Thousands of doctors, politicians, whistle blowers and inflicted people are finally speaking out. But it is coming too late – children and young people are dying of myocarditis suddenly, cancers are at an all-time high, there is unprecedented high rates of infertility and a host of other problems happening to otherwise healthy people before the shot.

It is a repeat pattern where a small group of very powerful centralised lobbying pushes agendas through various governments. We need to be wary of that and follow the money trail. If keen to know more, read about Klaus Schwab and One World Government.

This group is pushing to get all countries to have a Central Bank Digital Currency  (CBDC) where the ultimate objective is to have a One World Government. This tracks all usage of money and gives authorities complete control over all money you have saved or earned. Which means at a switch of a button, your accounts are frozen, or deleted, if you don’t agree with something or follow a narrative. It can be as something as supporting a policy or not supporting a policy, or eating too much of something they have ‘rationed’ or buying more than they give you credit for.

Where you spend, what you spend on, why you are spending it is all purview of the state.

A communist state, in short. Where you can never ever run away from it though, because the whole world is a huge surveillance camera that tracks you through The Internet of Things. 

Targeted subsidy could be just a trojan horse to bring in Digital ID. PADU can be weaponised against the people and we need to tread very carefully.

The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune. Feedback can reach the writer at beatrice@ibrasiagroup.com

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