Electronic Device Confiscation as Personal Data Breach: A Throw in the Truth-Games

Abstract

Confiscation, against an electronic device, in a crime related to the Information and Electronic Transactions Law, is an act of coercion as the authority of every law enforcement officer. However, the meaning of electronic devices, which are classified as Evidence, is still displaced in the meaning of the concept of "object" in Article 39 paragraph (1) of the Criminal Procedure Code. Speech acts in the form of text through social media instruments that contain elements of criminal acts, in the implementation of forced measures in the form of confiscation, cause other data to be disclosed, apart from the text of the speech act. This, in the end, any personal data becomes public consumption or at least, that law enforcement officials do not have the legal right to examine and view, and do not even have the right to confiscate it. The research in this article uses the legal research method through a legal science approach and a socio-political approach. The results of this study indicate that law enforcement officers' understanding of electronic systems and electronic devices is still trapped in normal science. Thus, law enforcement officials take legal action in the form of confiscation in a false consciousness by ignoring the protection of personal data. Therefore, it is important for the state and law enforcement institutions -as subjects of public law with limited power in the perspective of the Rule of Law and Human Rights -to protect an individual's personal data who is drawn into the criminal justice process by formulating a legal norm that grants the Suspect the right to defend data unrelated to the criminal act.