Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The Ministry of Public Securityis drafting a governmental decree on personal data protection in order toprotect the legal rights and interests of individual and organisations.

Vietnam is facing increasing cases of personal data theft,with more entities collecting, analysing and processing data for differentpurposes without notifying customers.

The ministry said that new services using personalinformation, such as online payments, e-commerce, games, cryptocurrency tradingand multi-level businesses, have raised issues related to national security andsocial order and safety.

“Therefore, the development of a decree on personal dataprotection is needed,” the ministry said.

It said that Vietnam’s internet use is growing rapidly. Thenumber of internet users accounts for about two thirds of the population, ofwhich there are 58 million Facebook accounts and 62 million Google accounts.

Along with a large number of users, the amount of datagenerated also increased.

The ministry said that personal data is assessed as an inputof the digital economy. Sectors and fields such as tax and e-commerce all usepersonal data to authenticate and identify users.

Last year, a bank in Vietnam exposed the personal data ofmore than two million customers. In previous years, customer data of a seriesof large companies in the retail and aviation industries also fell into thehands of hackers. Vietnam is also the country with the highest number ofindividuals exposed in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Several companies were mentioned in the report regardingtheir data breaches, including the exposure of VNG Company’s 163 millioncustomer accounts; Mobile World and Dien May Xanh’s breach including fivemillion emails and tens of thousands of payment card numbers; and customer dataof FPT Company was posted publicly online.

According to the ministry, this is a problem of datamanagement, which must be fixed to prevent and handle legal violations involvingpersonal information, while complying with international law.

In terms of policies, the draft decree has regulations onpersonal data protection focusing on regulations licensing the transfer ofpersonal data of Vietnamese citizens to foreign countries, registration ofprocessing sensitive personal data, revising a number of provisions of the lawon personal data protection.

It will define the rights and responsibilities of agencies,organisations and individuals in protecting personal data, aiming to agreeguidelines, policies and laws on personal data protection of agencies,organisations and individuals, and creating a legal basis for them to protectpersonal data.

The draft decree also includes concrete sanctions forviolations on personal data protection.

The ministry said that more than 80 countries have issueddocuments on the protection of personal information.

The draft has been sent to ministries and agencies to collectideas and opinions. It’s expected to be submitted to the Government later thisyear./.