For years, regulation on data privacy of Vietnam has been limited to general principle under the Civil Code and rephrased and shattered through a number of other legal instruments (including the Law on Cyberinformation Security). The application of data privacy regulation is thus difficult (and somewhat ambiguous), due to the lack of a centralized legal instrument on data privacy.
Nevertheless, the long-awaited centralized regulation on data privacy has now been formally promulgated by the Government of Vietnam – under the Government Decree No. 13/2023/ND-CP on Personal Data Protection (Decree 13) on 17 April 2023.
Decree 13, consisting of 44 Articles divided into 4 chapters, is expected to mitigate the ambiguity on data privacy regulation, thus create a more-solid foundation to boost the growth of Vietnam’s digital economy when it becomes fully effective from 01 July 2023. Unclear or ambiguous data privacy matters such as classification of personal data, principles of personal data processing, the rights and obligations of stakeholders in the data processing, consent and cross-border transfer of personal data or the extra-territorial scope of application of data privacy laws of Vietnam, are now addressed with clearer guidelines stipulated in Decree 13.
This legal update includes some of the key takeaways from Decree 13 that worth the attention from international business entrepreneur.
Further details of this legal update can be found here.
Hoang Le Hang
Business Development Manager
Tel: +84 24 3971 0888
Email: hang.hoang@lexcommvn.com
