By Ajisatria Suleiman, Regulatory Expert and Associate Researcher at the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies
At a glance
- Nationwide DPI Deployment and Active Harm Enforcement: Indonesia is scaling its Digital Public Infrastructure across 43 provinces to streamline public services, while shifting toward direct enforcement against online harms through mandatory child-safety risk audits and facial-recognition SIM card verification.
- Expanded Platform Oversight and Domestic Protection: E-commerce rules have broadened to cover ride-hailing and online travel platforms—imposing local product prioritisation in search algorithms, a proposed 8% cap on ride-hailing commissions, and tax collection responsibilities for marketplaces.
- Comprehensive Digital Finance Reform: Revisions to the P2SK Law expand financial supervision beyond retail crypto to tokenised assets and stablecoins, while new rules mandate cross-border data accountability for payment providers and enforce conduct standards for social media financial influencers.
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Indonesia’s digital governance agenda entered 2026 at an inflection point, as attention shifted from agenda setting to regulatory implementation.
This implementation-focused approach has emerged against a challenging macroeconomic backdrop. While Indonesia aims to grow its digital economy to between USD220 billion and USD360 billion by 2030, fiscal constraints and pressure to restore market confidence have shaped regulatory priorities. Policymakers are simultaneously pursuing protection against online harms, support for domestic industry, fiscal revenue mobilisation, and digital innovation, often requiring regulators to balance competing policy objectives.
In this context, four themes characterised Indonesia’s digital regulatory agenda by mid-2026. First, the acceleration of government digitalization through the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) approach. Second, a stronger focus on addressing online harms, particularly child safety, fraud, and illicit activities. Third, tighter regulation of digital platforms, especially in e-commerce and ride-hailing. Fourth, the expansion of digital finance regulation and supervision, covering new areas such as digital assets, new participants such as financial influencers, and strengthened licensing and procedural requirements for payment services.
Key Policy Trends
Digital Government: Scaling Digital Public Infrastructure
Digital government became a national priority, with Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) moving from policy concept to nationwide implementation through the acceleration of its DPI strategy. Following a successful pilot in Banyuwangi in 2025, the Government expanded digital social assistance distribution to 43 provinces and municipalities between June and August 2026 using three core DPI layers: digital identity, digital payments, and trusted data exchange. The initiative aims to improve service delivery, reduce administrative costs, and enable interoperability across government services.
Beyond public service delivery, in the long run, Indonesia sees DPI as a platform for public-private collaboration. By providing shared digital infrastructure and open APIs, the Government aims to enable financial institutions, technology companies, and other service providers to build value-added services on top of government infrastructure. If successful, this approach could improve public services while reducing long-term fiscal pressures through greater private-sector participation.
Online Harms Prevention: Moving from Principle to Enforcement
Indonesia intensified efforts to address online harms, particularly child safety, fraud and scams. Online child protection, in particular, has entered a new phase. Following the issuance of the flagship Government Regulation on Child Protection in Digital Systems (PP TUNAS) in 2025, regulators spent the first half of 2026 developing the technical framework necessary for implementation.
The Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi) issued Regulation No. 9 of 2026, introducing mandatory age assurance obligations alongside a comprehensive risk-based compliance framework for digital platforms. More importantly, subsequent implementing technical decrees established detailed methodologies for self-assessment, risk scoring, and government verification.
Platforms must now evaluate products against standardised indicators and assess risks across multiple categories of child safety. Regulators are moving towards auditable governance frameworks where companies are expected to document risk assessments, justify mitigation measures, and demonstrate ongoing compliance.
At the same time, the rapid growth of online scams, organised fraud networks, and illegal online gambling has elevated anti-fraud measures into one of Indonesia’s central digital policy priorities. As such, Komdigi Regulation No. 7 of 2026 introduces mandatory facial recognition for SIM card registration, supported by live verification against Indonesia’s population database. The objective is to strengthen identity assurance at the telecommunications level and reduce the use of anonymous mobile numbers in fraud schemes. Since it took effect on 1 July 2026, an estimated 10 million mobile users have registered their SIM cards using facial-recognition verification.
Digital Platforms: Enhancing Oversight of Market Conduct
The Government continued reshaping digital platform markets by strengthening oversight of e-commerce, ride-hailing while expanding the tax base of the digital economy.
Indonesia recalibrated its e-commerce regulatory framework through the Ministry of Trade Regulation No. 19 of 2026. The regulation expands the definition of electronic commerce to include online travel agencies and ride-hailing platforms. Previously, the regulation centred primarily on online retail, marketplaces, online classified advertisements, price comparison platforms, daily deals, and social commerce. In addition, Indonesia reaffirmed restrictions on social commerce conducting direct transactions without partnering with licensed marketplace operators.
Beyond regulating platforms, the Government is increasingly using e-commerce rules to support domestic businesses. The regulation requires platforms to prioritise Indonesian products in search results, recommendation systems, and ranking algorithms. This aims to improve local businesses’ ability to compete with low-priced imports. Rather than mandating how platforms should design or operate their algorithms, the Government establishes set intended outcomes while allowing operators the flexibility to determine technical mechanisms for implementation.
At the same time, fiscal policy has become more closely integrated with platform regulation. Pursuant to the Minister of Finance Regulation No. 37 of 2025, which became effective in July 2026, marketplace operators have been appointed as tax collection agents for the 0.5% SME Income tax. Sellers, including micro and small enterprises, are also expected to register their businesses and obtain Business Identification Numbers (NIB), enabling tax authorities to formalise previously informal digital commercial activities. However, the government subsequently decided to postpone this implementation until the end of October 2026, to provide additional time for marketplaces and merchants to prepare for the new requirements.
Ride-hailing has also attracted greater regulatory attention. Presidential Regulation No. 27 of 2026 reportedly requires platforms to reduce commissions to a maximum of 8%. This represents a notable reduction from the current maximum charge of 20%, representing a significant increase in government involvement in platform pricing arrangements. However, some uncertainty remains. Although the regulation has reportedly entered into force and companies have publicly expressed support, the official text has not yet been published through the Government’s formal legal databases or repository. Consequently, important implementation questions remain, including how the commission cap will apply across different business models and whether other categories of service fees remain permissible.
These developments suggest that Indonesia’s approach to platform regulation is increasingly shaped by regulatory bargaining among the government, platforms, workers, merchants, and other affected stakeholders, with the regulatory equilibrium and its impact on the digital economy yet to be seen.
Digital Finance: Expanding the Scope of Regulation
Indonesia’s digital finance sector also underwent significant structural reform to broaden the regulatory scope of digital finance. The amended 2026 Financial Sector Development and Strengthening Law (P2SK) aims to close regulatory gaps that could facilitate illicit financial activities involving digital financial innovation. It substantially expands the scope of regulated digital financial assets beyond traditional crypto-asset trading. Indonesia has historically focused on exchange-based crypto markets, making it Southeast Asia’s largest retail crypto market. The new framework establishes legal foundations for broader digital asset activities, including tokenised real-world assets, stablecoins, crypto-backed lending, and digital asset offerings. This represents a transition from regulating crypto primarily as a speculative instrument towards broader financial infrastructure.
Payments regulation is also evolving. Bank Indonesia’s new payment system framework, which became effective in March 2026, adopts activity-based and risk-based supervision based on the principle of “same activity, same risk, same regulation.” Existing payment service providers may therefore face new licensing classifications, capital requirements, and supervisory expectations depending on the nature of their activities rather than institutional labels.
Consumer protection is also extending into new areas of digital finance. Bank Indonesia’s 2026 new consumer protection regulation clarifies that payment service providers remain responsible for protecting consumer data regardless of whether processing or cloud infrastructure is located outside Indonesia. Rather than prohibiting cross-border cloud services, the regulation reinforces accountability for outsourced processing.
Meanwhile, the Financial Services Authority (OJK) introduced Regulation No. 6 of 2026 governing financial communications by content creators, influencers, educators, affiliates, and other parties active on social media. The regulation seeks to reduce market manipulation and misleading financial promotion by extending regulatory expectations beyond licensed financial institutions to influential online personalities.
These reforms suggest that Indonesia is gradually converging towards more function-based financial regulation, reflecting international regulatory developments while accommodating domestic market conditions.
Cross-cutting Governance Trends
Stronger Platform Responsibilities, Greater Provision of Digital Infrastructure
Across these policy areas, Indonesia appears to be pursuing a dual-track approach to digital governance. On one hand, the Government is strengthening protections for users and domestic economic interests, including through online child-safety measures, fraud prevention, responsible dissemination of financial information, support for local products in e-commerce, and more driver-friendly regulation of ride-hailing platforms. This places greater responsibilities on digital platforms, from conducting child-safety risk assessments, to strengthening KYC and identity verification, and integrating e-commerce platforms with the Government’s tax-administration system.
On the other hand, the Government is also expanding the digital infrastructure needed to enable private-sector compliance and digital service delivery, particularly through the DPI agenda and government-supported capabilities such as real-time facial recognition for identity verification. The emerging model therefore combines greater regulatory responsibility for private platforms with a more active role for the state in providing the trusted digital infrastructure necessary for those responsibilities to be implemented at scale.
Moving Forward
DPI will remain the most interesting area to watch. The Government is preparing a new Presidential Regulation that is expected to establish the governance framework for a GovTech agency, DPI framework, and public-private collaboration. At the same time, broader legislative initiatives, including the proposed One Data Law and Cybersecurity Law, continue progressing through the legislative process. These laws aim to enhance Indonesia’s digital landscape by fostering greater integration, data-driven decision-making, security, and resilience. Whether these initiatives complement or complicate the emerging DPI framework will significantly influence Indonesia’s digital government architecture.
Several important regulatory initiatives also remain outstanding. AI governance continues to evolve, with both an AI roadmap and AI ethics framework still under development. Meanwhile, implementing regulations under Indonesia’s Personal Data Protection Law continue to experience delays, leaving businesses awaiting greater legal certainty on operational compliance requirements.
Overall, the first half of 2026 demonstrated that Indonesia’s digital regulatory agenda is increasingly expanding. For policymakers, the next challenge will be maintaining coherence across multiple regulatory initiatives while preserving innovation and investment.
The views and recommendations expressed in this article, published in August 2026, are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and position of the Tech for Good Institute.
