Article 1: 30 Days and Nights of Accelerated Efforts to Complete the Digitization of Civil Registry Data
Editor's Note: Digital transformation is a fundamental solution that changes the way administrative procedures are handled in many fields, including the judicial sector. Recognizing the position and role of the Project on developing data applications on population, identification and electronic authentication to serve national digital transformation in the period 2022-2025, with a vision to 2030 (referred to as Project 06) in the work of the judicial sector, with the highest political determination, the Nghe An Department of Justice has vigorously implemented the tasks of the project...
15/04/2025
Ky Son is a remote, mountainous district facing many difficulties, but under the decisive leadership of the District People's Committee, the close professional guidance of the District Justice Department, and the efforts of the staff and civil servants in the 21 communes and towns in the district, after only 10 days and nights of digitizing civil registration data in the 30-day campaign launched by the Nghe An Department of Justice, Ky Son district has achieved its goal ahead of schedule.
Accordingly, the entire district has transferred 1,412 records of births, marriages, deaths, confirmations of marital status, and acknowledgment of parentage into the electronic civil registry database.
Mr. Lau Ba Cho, Head of the Justice Department of Ky Son District, said: Anticipating difficulties regarding machinery, equipment, and human resources, the department advised the District People's Committee to establish a Steering Committee headed by the Vice Chairman of the District People's Committee and a digitization team consisting of justice and information technology officers to provide technical support and guidance to the communes; any problems encountered should be resolved immediately. Accordingly, the working group of the district-level steering committee has prepared a template and sent it to the communes and towns to update according to the template, ensuring the correct and complete collection of data.
As a result, many localities in Ky Son district have achieved their targets ahead of schedule and exceeded them. Notable examples include: Muong Xen town, and the communes of Muong Tip, Muong Ai, Pha Danh, Huoi Tu, Muong Long, and Huu Kiem…
Acknowledging these efforts, the Chairman of the People's Committee of Ky Son District, Nguyen Viet Hung, issued Official Letter No. 325/UBND.TP dated March 14, 2025, commending all leaders, judicial and civil registration officials, and the civil registration data digitization team of the 21 communes and towns. He also requested the Chairmen of the People's Committees of the communes and towns to continue building on the achievements, focusing on digitizing records of changes, corrections, and additions to civil registration and cleaning up civil registration data.
In Quy Hop district, recognizing the 30-day campaign to digitize civil registration data as a particularly important task contributing to the creation of data for the national electronic civil registration database, ensuring unified application, interconnectedness, and synchronization to serve national digital transformation, the Quy Hop District People's Committee directed the Department of Justice and the People's Committees of 21 communes and towns to overcome difficulties and participate with high determination.
In just 9 days of implementing the campaign, the entire district has transferred 4,205 data records on births, marriages, deaths; confirmations of marital status; and acknowledgment of parentage on the system, basically completing the set task.
Hoang Mai town is also one of the units that finished early in the 30-day campaign to digitize civil registration data. Within 14 days, all 10 wards and communes in the town transferred 794 data records of births, marriages, deaths, adoptions, and guardianship, and scanned and attached 5,042 pages of civil registration books to the National Civil Registration Database system.
In Dien Chau district, prior to the campaign, there were approximately 2,000 undigitized records. By March 11, 2025, the district had completed the digitization of civil registration data throughout the area.
After the update is complete, this data will be transferred to the National Electronic Civil Registry Database, best meeting the requirements for civil registration and management according to the Law on Civil Registry and resolving administrative procedures in online civil registration, with the ability to connect to provide civil registry information to the National Population Database and other relevant specialized databases.
Furthermore, ensuring the accuracy and security of digitized data is also a crucial requirement, as civil registration information relates to the legal rights and obligations of citizens.
According to the head of the Department of Justice: Digitizing civil registration data brings many practical benefits to citizens and state management officials, and especially plays an important role in building and operating e-government; contributing to easier preservation of civil registration records and data, limiting physical damage; saving space, costs, and human resources due to the need to store a large number of records annually.
At the same time, it facilitates easy and quick data retrieval, saving time spent searching for original records, thereby reducing the time required to process administrative procedures.
Nghe An province has a total of 2,231,474 civil registration records. Although the volume of data requiring digitization is enormous, it demands significant investment in technology, human resources, and funding.
However, under the direction of the Provincial People's Committee, the efforts of localities, and the strong determination of the Justice sector, from 2020 to before March 2025, the entire province has implemented the digitization of 2,023,255 data (reaching 91%), with 208,219 data remaining undigitized (accounting for approximately 9%).
At the online conference on February 11, 2025, regarding the implementation of the Government's Project on developing applications of population data, electronic identification and authentication to serve national digital transformation in the period 2022-2025, with a vision to 2030 (Project 06), the Prime Minister requested Nghe An province to complete the digitization of civil registration data by March 2025.
Following the directives of the Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, the Department of Justice has issued a plan to implement a 30-day campaign to complete the digitization of civil registration data in the province. The campaign will run from March 1, 2025 to before March 31, 2025. The data to be digitized includes: birth registration books, marriage registration books, death registration books, parent-child registration books, adoption registration books, guardianship registration books, and divorce records.
According to Ms. Nguyen Thi Lan, Deputy Director of the Department of Justice and Head of the Campaign Steering Committee, in order to digitize the remaining data volume in the province with quality and ensure the set progress, the Department of Justice has established a Campaign Steering Committee, divided into two teams, each responsible for 10 units.
Members of the Steering Committee are responsible for providing guidance and technical support in the implementation of civil registration data digitization in the assigned localities.
Prior to the 30-day campaign to digitize civil registration data, and in line with the Ministry of Justice's high-intensity emulation movement "Accelerating the completion of the Civil Registration Data Digitization Plan," the Nghe An Department of Justice focused on directing efforts to strengthen the review and verification process to ensure the accuracy and completeness of digitized data, and to expedite the approval of data from the Civil Registration Software 158 into the electronic civil registration database. Simultaneously, a team was established to inspect the implementation of historical civil registration data digitization in several localities within the province.
The inspection results show that the digitization of historical civil registry data at the units has been implemented seriously and systematically, with basic data being digitized relatively completely, facilitating judicial officials in accessing and searching civil registry information, and serving the issuance of copies of extracts…
However, the process of digitizing civil registration books still faces some challenges and obstacles, such as: some books are old and dilapidated, with unclear information and smudged ink, making digitization difficult; some books have been handed over to the digitization unit but have not yet been digitized; there is still data duplication because the software's duplicate checking function was not enabled at the time of approval; some cases of information errors such as year of birth, ID number, incorrect registration type, or registration subject; some scanned data files cannot be opened after being transferred to the electronic civil registration database due to download errors.
In addition, the 158 civil registration software; the electronic civil registration software frequently experiences errors and overload, significantly affecting the progress of digitization at the local level.
To address the difficulties and obstacles in the digitization process, the Nghe An Department of Justice has sent official letters to the Ministry of Justice requesting the continued addition of information on administrative place names to the Civil Registry Software 158 to serve the digitization of civil registry books; at the same time, it continues to urge districts, cities, and towns to review and digitize; and clean up civil registry data with national population data.
Following the launch of the 30-day campaign to complete the digitization of civil registration data in the province, Mr. Vo Van Tam, Head of the Administrative and Judicial Affairs Department (Department of Justice), said: Working groups of the Steering Committee under the Department of Justice have also directly visited the grassroots level to inspect, guide, and support localities in resolving difficulties and obstacles.
In some localities, the judicial staff have strong expertise and are proficient in IT, leading to many innovative approaches in the implementation of the four steps (collecting and classifying civil registry books to be digitized; scanning/photographing civil registry books and creating Excel data files; processing data after digitization; checking, approving, and officially adding the data to the national electronic civil registry database).
Furthermore, recognizing the importance of digitizing civil registration data, the People's Committees of districts, cities, and towns have directed the Justice Departments and People's Committees at the commune level to focus on implementing the digitization. Simultaneously, they have assigned qualified IT personnel to support the justice departments in the digitization process; and allocated funds and facilities to ensure the data digitization is completed on schedule. According to the initial plan, the total volume of civil registration data to be digitized throughout the province is 208,192 records.
However, during the 30-day campaign, civil registration agencies reviewed and supplemented the data, bringing the total to 213,087 eligible records for digitization (10,893 records remained unqualified due to old, torn, incomplete, or unclear records).
Thanks to coordinated efforts, Nghe An province has completed the digitization of 213,087 out of 213,087 eligible data records, achieving a 100% rate (10,893 records remain undigitized due to old, damaged, incomplete, or unclear records). Thus, from 2020 to the present, the entire province has digitized 2,217,240 civil registration records.
With digitized data, civil registration agencies in the province have been utilizing and applying it to issue copies of civil registration extracts, verify, search, and confirm civil registration for organizations and individuals, contributing to the quick and convenient resolution of administrative procedures. At the same time, it strengthens state management of civil registration…
