The Global Network Initiative (GNI) welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on Vietnam’s ‘Draft Decree’, to replace the Decree No. 72/2013/ND-CP on the management, provision and use of Internet services and online information and Decree No. 27/2018/ND-CP that supplements it, recently published for comment.
GNI has been following the evolution of Internet regulation in Vietnam since 2012, when GNI published a statement concerning the prohibited acts of expression, data localisation and content monitoring obligations as set out in Articles 5, 24, and 25 of the former Decree No. 72/2013/ND-CP. GNI acknowledges the important role that the governments can have in regulating the ICT sector to enhance due process, transparency, and accountability. However, without carefully considered approaches and narrowly-tailored requirements on content-related decision-making, content regulation can lead to censorship and privacy infringement.
In this submission, we detail some of our key concerns – including mandatory user ID verification, privacy risks associated with the storage of sensitive data, cross-border monitoring and takedown of content, and the scope of government’s blocking powers.