Data Sharing Bill 2024 passed by Senate

23 January 2025

On 19 December 2024, the Data Sharing Bill 2024 (“Bill”) was passed by the Dewan Negara and will come into force at a later date. The Bill includes, among other things, provisions for sharing of data between public sector agencies and the establishment of the National Data Sharing Committee.

“Public sector agency” is defined as:

• any agency responsible for public services as set out in Article 132(1) of the Federal Constitution, which would include the armed forces, the judicial and legal service, the general public service of the Federation, the police force, and the education service. Joint public services (i.e. joint services common to the Federation and the States) and the public service of each State are exempted from this definition; and
• any statutory authority exercising its powers under any federal law.

The Bill defines “data” broadly to include any facts, statistics, instructions, concepts, or other information which can be communicated, analysed, or processed by an individual, a computer, or any other means.

Key provisions

Some of the key provisions introduced by the Bill are as follows:

Establishment of the National Data Sharing Committee (“Committee”): The Committee is tasked with overseeing the implementation of the Bill and is empowered to issue policies and strategies on data sharing, which may include measures to preserve data privacy and confidentiality, data handling and storage safeguards, methods for data sharing, and risk assessment frameworks for data handling and storage.

Empowerment of public sector: The Bill seeks to empower public sector agencies to request data sharing in a manner as determined by the Director General of the National Digital Department.

Data sharing: The Bill introduces provisions relating to the purposes of data sharing, evaluation and responses by a public sector agency receiving a request for data sharing, and grounds of refusal to share data. It also elaborates on the duties relating to data sharing, including duties of third parties relating to data sharing and the duty to report particulars of data sharing to the Director General of the National Digital Department.

Penalties: The Bill imposes a maximum penalty of RM1,000,000 and/or imprisonment for a maximum term of five years if any officer or servant of a public sector agency uses or discloses the shared data apart from the purposes for which the data is shared.