KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 2): Economy Minister Mohd Rafizi Ramli has allayed concerns that Malaysians can be locked out of registering for a Central Database Hub (Padu) account by other people in possession of the applicant's personal details.
He explained that the registration would only be valid once the e-KYC (Electronic Know-Your-Customer) process was successful, and that requires the uploading of the applicant's selfie and a copy of his or her MyKad.
“Unless the eKYC is completed, the registration would not be complete or valid,” the minister said on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) on Tuesday.
Rafizi was responding to former DAP lawmaker Ong Kian Ming's call to Malaysians to quickly register their accounts to avoid identity theft issues.
“Please register your Padu account at padu.gov.my immediately. If not, your IC address can register your IC on your behalf since the registration is before the eKYC approval which takes three days. It will be a hassle to get back your account,” said Ong on the social media platform X on Tuesday after the official launch of Padu.
"To test this out, I obtained the IC nos and postcode of my colleagues from the electoral roll @scheekeong @hannahyeoh @LiewChinTong @TeoNieChing and registered Padu accounts using my own phone no and email address... now they cannot register accounts themselves," he said referring to four DAP cabinet members, namely Human Resources Minister Steven Sim Chee Keong, Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh, Deputy Investment Trade and Industry Minister Liew Chin Tong and Deputy Communications Minister Teo Nie Ching.
Rafizi said applicants who encountered such issues can reach out to the Padu helpdesk. “If there is a situation where someone else's account is registered, the user can go directly to the Helpdesk (online, call center or physical counters),” he said.
Rafizi also dismissed Ong’s claim that it would take three days to obtain the eKYC approval.
“The industry standard eKYC provided by eKYC systems in the market mentions three days (as do applications in the market), but so far eKYC for registered users takes less than five minutes to be verified.
He explained that Padu has placed eKYC as the last step for the registration process after taking into account that the eKYC process by an algorithm may take a few times before it is complete.
Meanwhile, Rafizi said close to 40,000 eKYCs had been approved, while 300 eKYCs are "in the queue" waiting for approval as of 5pm on Tuesday.
In total, 70,000 applicants have successfully registered under Padu after four hours since the launch.
Padu is a tool for ensuring the government’s efficiency in delivering targeted subsidies while also reducing costs for the government as it aims to avoid leakages.
Last week, Rafizi said Padu was fully developed by civil servants from three agencies (the Ministry of Economy, the Department of Statistics Malaysia or DOSM, and the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit or Mampu) in collaboration with all other agencies.
Rafizi added that Padu was developed within seven months since May, and would not involve annual payments to private system providers because it belongs to the government.
He said Padu involves the development of the largest data system ever made by the public sector, and possibly the largest in the country’s history, because it concerns details for each of the 32 million Malaysians, forming hundreds of millions of data points.
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