Integration of Consumer Protection and Personal Data Protection in E-Commerce Transactions in Indonesia

Abstract

The growth of electronic commerce (e-commerce) has created increasingly complex legal relationships among consumers, business actors, platform operators, payment service providers, and other supporting parties. These developments raise issues concerning contractual balance, the allocation of business actor liability, and the protection of consumers' personal data. This study aims to analyze the legal construction of consumer protection in e-commerce agreements in Indonesia and to assess the effectiveness of its implementation in digital transactions. The study employs normative legal research using statutory, conceptual, and case approaches, strengthened by document based empirical confirmation through consumer complaint reports, government institutional data, court decisions, and documents related to electronic transactions. The findings show that e-commerce consumer protection already rests on contract law, the Consumer Protection Law, regulations on electronic transactions and Trading Through Electronic Systems, and the Personal Data Protection Law. Nevertheless, imbalances persist in standard form contracts, responsibility among actors in the digital ecosystem is not always clearly distributed, and a gap remains between normative protection and the practical recovery of consumer rights. Personal data protection is therefore inseparable from digital consumer protection. Strengthening consumer protection requires transparent information, fair contractual clauses, responsibility based on function and control over risk, secure personal data processing, and complaint and redress mechanisms that are simple, prompt, and effective.