Online personal privacy in Vietnam

By Bui Quang Hanh Quyen, a student at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, majoring in Communications.

Online personal privacy has been a big concern to many countries for years. According to Herath, Rao & Upadhyaya (2012), neglecting online personal privacy protection could be a critical mistake of an authority. The authors believe that the leakage of personal information is the main cause of many sophisticated cybercrimes such as cyber-bullying, identity theft, account theft and others.
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In California, USA, the Online Privacy Protection Act (OPPA), which went into effect  in 2004, provides  a very detailed guideline about the manifestation and punishments for online personal privacy and has been updated regularly up until now.

What happened in Vietnam?

In  Vietnam however, the issue of online personal privacy seems not to be taken as seriously as it should be. Sharbaugh (2013) states that in Vietnam, online personal privacy is still a new concept to the government and that “…the topic of personal privacy has been entirely absent from the national discourse.” In fact, I believe his argument could be demonstrated by the content of the latest version of the Information Technology Safety Law, which was updated in 2006 (Văn bản chính phủ nd).
 
We can easily recognize that online personal privacy is mentioned as the individual’s need to ask for permission to use online information of another. But, in fact, it is no longer that simple. It’s easily assumed  that at the time this law was applied, in 2006, there were fewer social network sites, less internet users, less surveillance equipment and surely less cybercrimes than in present day.

Is the Government listening?

Many stories have been told about the consequences of personal information leakage in Vietnam, especially since the boom of Facebook among youngsters in 2009. Then, in mid-2013, the public was troubled by the suicide of a 12th grade schoolgirl (Lê & Linh 2013). Further investigation revealed that her photos on Facebook had been downloaded and collaged with the body of a sexy girl by one of her classmates. This classmate then spread the fake photos all over the school to bully the girl. After prolonged suffering from depression, the girl  committed suicide.

There are many aspects to discuss in this case, though I only want to question why this girl did not report her situation to anyone or any agency? The answer may be that she was not aware of her rights regarding personal information protection, or that she did not know where to report it, how to do so and who could help her. She was not aware of her rights, and yet maybe neither are we. We do not know because nobody has told us or ever shown us that our online personal information could be protected.
 
Furthmore, no official online rights protection organizations, or something of the sort, exists in Vietnam. However, I believe thegovernment is beginning to realize the importance of stricter laws for safeguarding online personal information. In fact, a new law called Digital Information Security is being considered and is supposed to be applied in 2016 (Dự thảo Online nd). While waiting for the new law to be officially instated, I will stop uploading pictures on Facebook…