• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
  • WORLD DEMOCRACY
  • POLITICAL ART
  • more
    • election technology
    • money politics
    • political dissidents
    • THIRD PARTY
      • third party central
      • green party
      • justice party
      • libertarian party
    • voting methods
  • DC INFO
    • author central
    • about
    • advertise with DC
    • contact
    • privacy policy

Democracy Chronicles

In Vietnam, Big Brother Is Watching Everyone

by DC Editors - December 26, 2018

FacebookTweetLinkedInPin

Vietnam, Big Brother

 

From Human Right Watch

(New York) – Vietnam should postpone the application of the Law on Cyber Security and revise it to bring it to conformity with international law, Human Rights Watch said today. The National Assembly passed this highly problematic law in June 2018. In November, the Public Security Ministry published a draft decree with detailed instruction for carrying out the law and invited public comments until January 2, 2019.
Under the Law on Cyber Security, service providers must store data locally, “verify” user information, and disclose user data to authorities without the authorities having to produce a court order. The draft decree has a sweeping definition of user data.

“This cyber security law is designed to further enable the Ministry of Public Security’s pervasive surveillance to spot critics, and to deepen the Communist Party’s monopoly on power,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. “If this law is enacted, anyone who uses the internet in Vietnam will have zero privacy.”

The cyber security law and draft decree’s data retention, localization, and surveillance provisions would facilitate greater access to user data by abusive security bureaus and law enforcement authorities, without adequate safeguards for privacy, fair trial rights, and other rights.

Data to be stored is far more than basic subscriber data. It includes, under article 24 in the draft decree, a person’s “full name, date of birth, place of birth, nationality, profession, position, place of residence, contact address, email address, phone number, identity card number, individual identification code, citizen identification number, passport number, social insurance card number, credit card number, health status, medical file, and biometrics file.” The decree, in the same article, also requires companies to store the content of user’s posts, emails, and other “information chosen for upload, sync or import from device,” and information about contacts and relationships like “friends [and] groups that users connect with or interact with.”

The draft decree also requires a broad range of companies that provide online or telecommunications services in Vietnam to open branches or offices in Vietnam “within 12 months upon receiving requests from minister of public security,” under article 29. This requirement will sweep in not only major social media and email providers, but also e-commerce websites, online payment services, domain name providers, video game companies, and data storage companies. Under article 26, companies must store user data for as long as they operate or until they no longer provide the service, and user content and contact lists for 36 months.

The new law has been widely criticized both in Vietnam and internationally. Within four months after the law was passed, almost 70,000 people had signed an online petition to urge the government to postpone and revise it.

In September, 32 members of the European Parliament sent a joint letter to Federica Mogherini, the European high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, and Cecilia Malmström, the European Union commissioner for trade, “to ask for more human rights progress in Vietnam.” The letter said that Vietnam should “revise the Law on Cyber Security and bring it into compliance with international human rights standards, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Vietnam is a state party since 1982.”

The human rights situation in Vietnam has deteriorated in 2018. The authorities convicted at least 41 rights activists and bloggers and sentenced them to many years in prison, including Le Dinh Luong, Nguyen Van Tuc, Nguyen Trung Truc, Nguyen Trung Ton, Truong Minh Duc, Nguyen Bac Truyen, Pham Van Troi, Tran Hoang Phuc, Ho Van Hai (Dr. Ho Hai), Luu Van Vinh, Nguyen Van Duc Do, Hoang Duc Binh, and many others. The police are holding at least 19 other people in pre-trial detention for exercising their civil and political rights.

In June, thousands of people took to the streets in several cities to protest a draft law on special economic zones and the draft Law on Cyber Security. There were reports that the police assaulted many people and made dozens of arrests. By November, at least 127 people had been convicted for participating in the protest. Sentences ranged from several months, suspended, to five years in prison.

“Vietnam’s Law on Cyber Security and the accompanying decree trample on individual privacy in direct defiance of Hanoi’s promises to the European Union to respect rights,” Robertson said. “EU member states should postpone any vote on the free trade agreement with Vietnam until it revises this law and shows concrete and measurable improvements to its abysmal rights record.”

FacebookTweetLinkedInPin

Filed Under: International Democracy Tagged With: Asia, Dictatorships, George Orwell, Spying and Privacy, Vietnam

About DC Editors

We are your source for news on the all important effort to establish and strengthen democracy across the globe. Our international team with dozens of independent authors are your gateway into the raging struggle for free and fair elections on every continent with a focus on election reform in the United States. See our Facebook Page and also follow us on Twitter @demchron.

Some highlighted Democracy Chronicles topics

Africa American Corruption American Local Elections American State Elections Asia Capitalism and Big Business Celebrity Politics China Democracy Charity Democracy Protests Democrats Dictatorships Education Election History Election Methods Election Security Election Transparency Europe Internet and Democracy Journalism and Free Speech Middle East Minority Voting Rights Money Politics New York City and State Elections Political Artwork Political Dissidents Political Lobbying Redistricting Republicans Russia Socialism and Labor Social Media and Democracy South America Spying and Privacy Supreme Court Third Party Voter Access Voter ID Voter Registration Voter Suppression Voter Turnout Voting Technology Women Voting Rights Worldwide Worldwide Corruption

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Home | ALL NEWS | WORLD | In Vietnam, Big Brother Is Watching Everyone

Primary Sidebar

Advertise button

Florida Doesn’t Need a Speech Czar

By Steve Schneider June 28, 2022

Full disclosure: I’m a liberal Democrat. So, I won’t be sending in my vote-by-mail ballot for Ron DeSantis in November. Nor will I vote for him in 2024.

Introducing: When The People Decide

By Jenna Spinelle June 25, 2022

Several activists and average citizens have changed their communities and the country by taking important issues directly to votes.

democracy chronicles newsletter

DC AUTHORS

Democracy’s Summer Blockbusters

By Jenna Spinelle June 8, 2022

The summer will be legally and politically charged particularly with the January 6 committee hearings scheduled to begin June 9.

Can American Democracy Have Nice Things?

By Jenna Spinelle June 7, 2022

Universal voting would be the surest way to protect against voter suppression and the active disenfranchisement of a large share of our citizens.

PODCAST: Baby Boomers And American Gerontocracy

By Jenna Spinelle May 23, 2022

Older and younger voters are increasingly at odds: Republicans as a whole skew gray-haired, and within the Democratis, the left-leaning youth vote.

A Dangerous Reprise Of American Exceptionalism In Ukraine

By Jamie Lampidis May 15, 2022

The stakes are too high to cave into Putin’s phantasmatic imperial play, and too high to believe that this war can be won by arming Ukrainians.

On The Coming End Of Roe v. Wade

By Peter J. Dellolio May 11, 2022

Anyone who says that the evolution of law has nothing to do with politics is either very corrupt or very stupid. Laws evolved through the centuries.

Goodbye Roe v. Wade, Goodbye Rule Of Law

By Andrew Straw May 5, 2022

Congress should impeach judges who act like that because it is not good behavior, and they were asked not to act that way when they were confirmed.

PODCAST: Debating The Future Of Debates

By Jenna Spinelle May 4, 2022

We love a good debate — and have certainly had plenty of them on this show. But how effective are they in today’s media and political landscape?

MORE FROM OUR AUTHORS

VISIT OUR POLITICAL ART SECTION:

dc political art

DEMOCRACY CULTURE

India: Why Are Punjab Political Singers Under Attack?

India: Why Are Punjab Political Singers Under Attack?

June 8, 2022

The murder of Sidhu Moose Wala has brought attention to the link between Punjabi music and India’s cross-border criminal networks.

University Educated Less Likely To Endorse Authoritarianism

University Educated Less Likely To Endorse Authoritarianism

June 4, 2022

Higher education is now seen as a new political cleavage, with level of education increasingly important in describing political attitudes.

From Cake To Volunteers, Welcome To Australia’s Democracy Day

From Cake To Volunteers, Welcome To Australia’s Democracy Day

May 25, 2022

The atmosphere in the interstate polling booth in Sydney’s inner east resembled that of an emergency room waiting for a donor organ.

Kenyan 'Cartooning For Peace' To Draw Africa Towards Democracy

Kenyan ‘Cartooning For Peace’ To Draw Africa Towards Democracy

May 17, 2022

Cartooning is an art that has been playing a major role in illustrating stories in different ways, from health to politics, and even sports.

Anxious Leaders Influence Their Followers' Anxiety, Even Online

Anxious Leaders Influence Their Followers’ Anxiety, Even Online

May 17, 2022

Organizational leader’s tweets can influence employee anxieties and this effect is more prominent since the rise of COVID-19, study.

MORE CULTURE

VISIT OUR US DEMOCRACY SECTION:

American Democracy