Data Breaches in Government Digital Public Services: A Systematic Mapping of Research and Governance Challenges (2015–2025)

Background: The rapid digital transformation of public services has increased the collection and use of citizens’ personal data, intensifying concerns about data breaches in government-operated systems. However, existing research remains fragmented, with technical cybersecurity perspectives receiving greater attention than governance and public administration perspectives. Objective: This study aims to systematically map global research on data breaches in digital public services from 2015 to 2025 and identify theoretical and governance gaps relevant to the Indonesian context. Methods: A systematic literature review guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines was combined with bibliometric and scientometric analyses of publications indexed in Scopus. Descriptive bibliometric analysis and author keyword co-occurrence mapping using VOSviewer were conducted on 1,169 open-access documents, while 62 articles meeting the final eligibility criteria were examined through qualitative synthesis. Results: The findings reveal an increase in research output and six thematic clusters. Cybersecurity and data security had the highest keyword occurrence (235), whereas privacy, ethics, and data protection exhibited the greatest total link strength (457). Governance, institutional accountability, organizational capacity, and public trust remain comparatively less integrated into technical cybersecurity research. Conclusion: This study reconceptualizes data breaches in digital public services as sociotechnical governance challenges involving technological vulnerabilities, institutional capacity, regulatory arrangements, and public trust. The findings provide a conceptual foundation for strengthening public-sector data governance in Indonesia while highlighting the need for empirical validation and further comparative research.