From 200-Day Verification to 5 Minutes: Indonesia's New Social Assistance Revolution

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - The government claims to have drastically accelerated the verification of social assistance beneficiary data, reducing the process from months to mere minutes.

The Head of the Government Communication Agency of the Republic of Indonesia (Bakom RI), Muhammad Qodari, explained that the digitalisation of the Social Protection system has shortened the time needed to register social assistance recipients from 200 days to just five minutes.

Qodari explained that the multi-layered verification system across eight institutions was what made the eligibility verification process for social assistance recipients take hundreds of days.

“Now it is clear why eight institutions? If done manually one by one, it takes 200 days, more than half a year. With this trial, it can be done in about five minutes, just five minutes,” he said during a press conference at the Bakom RI Office in Jakarta on Wednesday (18/8/2026).

Furthermore, Qodari explained that public registration has also been designed to be sophisticated yet simple to use.

“The public only needs a digital population identity (IKD) and facial verification. They also need to enter their PLN number for residents who do not yet have an IKD,” he added.

According to him, Digital Social Protection uses data from eight ministries and agencies as a filter for beneficiary eligibility. This data includes land ownership, electricity usage, housing conditions, age, vehicle ownership, employment status, and wages.

The data is then matched with population decile data, which has been one of the main indicators for social assistance recipients.

The fully digital system for distributing social assistance is believed to be the solution for targeted distribution in accordance with recipients’ entitlements.

“Through the digitalisation of Social Protection, they now obtain their rights. This is a manifestation of justice in the distribution of social assistance,” he said.

On this occasion, Qodari demonstrated the Digital Social Protection trial in the city of Surabaya. In this trial, Digital Social Protection was able to significantly clean up recipient data.

“Imagine there are around 51,000 heads of households who should have been receiving social assistance but had not yet received it. Through the digitalisation of Social Protection, they now obtain their rights. This is a manifestation of justice in the distribution of social assistance,” he explained.