Constitutional Court Partially Grants Petition on Expired Internet Quota

The Constitutional Court (MK) has partially granted a judicial review petition regarding the forfeiture of internet quotas, obliging providers to offer service options that guarantee users’ remaining data quotas remain active and usable. Chief Justice Suhartoyo read the verdict in a session in Jakarta on Thursday, stating that petition number 273/PUU-XXIII/2025 was granted in part. The court declared that Article 28 paragraph (1) in Article 71 number 2 of the Annex to Law Number 6 of 2023 on Job Creation is conditionally unconstitutional and lacks binding legal force unless it is interpreted to mean that telecommunications operators must provide service options ensuring users’ remaining quotas remain active and can be used. According to the court, users with remaining data quotas, whether on prepaid or postpaid plans, must receive legal protection for those rights. This protection can be realised through various service options, such as quota accumulation or rollover, validity period extensions, benefit transfers, compensation, refunds, or other mechanisms. The court assessed that these service options must be explicitly regulated to provide legal certainty for telecommunications operators while ensuring fair protection for consumers. The court emphasised that unused quotas must be protected as the property of the telecommunications service user and must be usable until exhausted without additional charges or tariffs. Furthermore, the government and telecommunications operators are required to involve stakeholders and consumer protection agencies when making tariff adjustments. The case was filed by online motorcycle taxi driver Didi Supandi and online food trader Wahyu Triana Sari, who challenged the provisions of Article 71 number 2 of Law Number 6 of 2023 on Job Creation. Their legal counsel, Viktor Santoso Tandiasa, argued that the article contained multi-interpretable norms without limiting parameters, giving operators absolute freedom to conflate service rates with ownership duration. He stated this created legal uncertainty for telecommunications service users as consumers, who could never be certain why data commodities they had fully paid for could simply disappear due to a unilaterally determined time variable.