Minister of Public Security: Will advise the Government to submit to the National Assembly to promulgate the Law on Personal Data Protection

On the morning of August 10, continuing the 14th Session, the National Assembly Standing Committee organized a question-and-answer session on a group of issues within the field and responsibility of the Ministry of Public Security. The question-and-answer session was held directly at the Dien Hong meeting room and connected online to 62 National Assembly delegations in provinces and centrally-run cities.

Overview of the question and answer session at the 14th Session of the National Assembly Standing Committee. Photo: Quochoi.vn

Connection point of the National Assembly Delegation of Nghe An province. Photo: Pham Bang

The situation of personal information leakage and cybercrime is alarming.

Questioning the Minister of Public Security, delegate Nguyen Thi Thuy (National Assembly Delegation of Bac Kan Province) said that the situation of personal information being sold on social networking groups and associations is complicated. She asked the Minister of Public Security to inform her about the solutions that the Ministry will implement in the coming time to prevent, stop and effectively handle this problem. On the same issue, many delegates also asked why we have not yet considered and submitted the Law on Protection of Personal Privacy, but instead only issued a "headless" Decree? Does it meet practical needs or not?

Speaking at the opening of the question-and-answer session, National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue asked National Assembly deputies to stick to the question-and-answer topic, ask short, to-the-point questions, and debate frankly, responsibly, and constructively. Photo: Quochoi.vn

Regarding cybercrime, delegate Nguyen Hoang Uyen (National Assembly Delegation of Long An Province) asked the Minister of Public Security to provide solutions to strengthen the fight, prevent and effectively handle crimes of spreading bad, harmful, distorted information, and impersonating state agencies and individual leaders of the Party and State.

Delegate Pham Van Hoa (National Assembly Delegation of Dong Thap Province) asked the Minister to propose solutions to prevent and stop gambling crimes, organizing gambling, online betting, and when our country will implement Decree 17 on betting.

Responding to questions from delegates, Minister of Public Security To Lam said that recently, the situation of spreading fake news and untrue information on the Internet and social networks has been alarming and very complicated, with an increasing trend. In this situation, the Ministry of Public Security has coordinated with the Ministry of Information and Communications to deploy many synchronous legal, economic and technical solutions to force cross-border service providers to comply with Vietnamese law; thereby controlling, restricting, preventing and promptly removing fake, bad, toxic and offensive information on social networks.

Delegate Nguyen Thi Thuy - National Assembly Delegation of Bac Kan province raised a question to the Minister of Public Security. Photo: Quochoi.vn

The Ministry of Public Security has fought, handled, and severely punished acts of deliberately posting fabricated and untrue information on social networks, acts of distorting the Party and State's guidelines, policies, and laws, distorting history, defaming the Party and State's leaders, and sabotaging the country's international relations; at the same time, propagating warnings and orienting public opinion. Proactively fighting, preventing, removing, destroying, and neutralizing bad and toxic information, fake news, and untrue news. Proactively and promptly providing official information in a complete and comprehensive manner.

Regarding the issue of personal information being leaked, leaked, and sold on social networks, the Ministry of Public Security has directed the Public Security of units and localities to strengthen the work of grasping the situation and proactively detecting loopholes and shortcomings. Propagating and raising awareness of a number of cadres, civil servants, and public employees about providing and managing personal records, personal data, and people; striving to study and advise the Government to submit to the National Assembly to promulgate the Law on Personal Data Protection by 2024; considering this a key solution to prevent and combat the current widespread situation of personal data trading and processing.

Regarding solutions to prevent, combat and combat cybercrime, Minister To Lam said that in recent times, the Ministry of Public Security has implemented many plans and solutions to combat and suppress cybercrime and organized gambling, achieving many results. In the first 6 months of 2022 alone, over 100 cases were prosecuted, with nearly 600 defendants in gambling cases.

General To Lam - Politburo member, Minister of Public Security answers questions. Photo: Quochoi.vn

In the coming time, the Ministry of Public Security will deploy solutions to prevent and combat crimes and organizations in cyberspace; continue to strengthen the work of grasping the situation of websites and gambling organizations in Vietnam, strictly handling violators, especially ringleaders. The Ministry of Public Security will coordinate with ministries, departments and agencies to drastically and synchronously deploy solutions to improve the effectiveness of state management in the field of cyber security, especially online payments.

Minister To Lam also said that the legal corridor and system of legal documents in the field of cyber security are not yet complete. The coordination between ministries, departments, branches, localities, and socio-political organizations has not been put into practice, and there is a situation of assigning the task of security protection to specialized agencies. The work of inspection, examination, detection, and handling of cyber security violations is not yet timely. The Ministry of Public Security is also focusing on solutions to resolve these problems.

Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung further explained issues of concern to delegates. Photo: Quochoi.vn

Explaining further about the issue of removing false information on cyberspace, Minister of Information and Communications Nguyen Manh Hung said that currently, bad and toxic information mainly appears on cross-border platforms. In the third quarter of 2022, a number of decrees will be amended and issued, creating a very important legal corridor for managing cross-border platforms and enforcing the law in Vietnam.

Recently, the Ministry of Information and Communications has put into operation the National Cyber ​​Security Center to detect malicious and false information early. The processing capacity of this Center has increased from 100 million messages/day to 300 million messages/day. Since 2021, the Ministry of Information and Communications has also established the Vietnam Fake News Processing Center to receive people's feedback on fake news for processing. The Minister of Information and Communications emphasized that removing false information on cyberspace is the job of the entire political system, ministries, branches, localities and all people.

At the question-and-answer session, Minister of Finance Ho Duc Phoc explained difficulties in implementing regulations on international football betting business; the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is responsible for reporting more clearly on the implementation of the Sports Law, including the proposal to pilot international football betting, horse racing and dog racing.

Create the most convenience for people

Delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga (National Assembly Delegation of Hai Duong Province) stated that currently, in many localities, information data is not synchronized, making implementation very difficult. The delegate asked the Minister to provide solutions to overcome the above situation. Delegate Pham Van Hoa (Dong Thap Province) asked the Ministry of Public Security to provide solutions to handle errors in issuing citizen identification cards with electronic chips.

Delegate Pham Van Hoa - National Assembly Delegation of Dong Thap province raised questions to the Minister of Public Security. Photo: Quochoi.vn

Answering questions from delegates regarding the legal basis for the issuance of the National Population Database, Minister of Public Security To Lam said that the Ministry has recently resolved the steps based on the Law on Citizen Identification. However, there are two steps related to the Ministry of Justice according to the Law on Civil Status, which are birth and death registration. Currently, the connection of databases still has some problems in the Law on Civil Status. The Minister of Public Security said that the Ministry will continue to make recommendations to competent authorities to reduce procedures and create the most favorable conditions for people.

In addition, the Ministry of Public Security is integrating information from various sectors into the national database system on citizen identification and citizen identification cards. Citizen identification cards with electronic chips can integrate information from more than 30 different types of documents such as driver's licenses, health insurance cards, social insurance cards, household registration books, temporary residence cards, temporary absence cards, etc. The Minister affirmed that in the coming time, when the national data system is synchronized with other ministries and sectors, people's transactions to carry out other administrative procedures will be much more convenient.

Regarding information errors in citizen identification cards, the Minister of Public Security said that there are cases where first-time declarants do not provide accurate information, or officers are irresponsible, but this number is not large. In the coming time, the Ministry of Public Security will actively coordinate, complete, and issue sufficient documents to citizens, on that basis, other agencies will base on that accurate data to carry out their work. This is also a very elaborate task, requiring effort and time.

Minister of Justice Le Thanh Long clarified further issues in the national population database. Photo: Quochoi.vn

Explaining further on this issue, Minister of Justice Le Thanh Long said that the Government has directed the review, amendment and supplementation of relevant legal documents. Up to now, both the central and local levels have reviewed over 3,000 documents; it is expected to amend and supplement 200 documents related to this work.

The Minister of Justice said that in reality, there is some inconsistent information when comparing provincial information with information in the national population database. To handle this, based on current legal regulations, first of all Article 4 of the Law on Civil Status and Article 9 of the Law on Citizen Identification, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Public Security need to promptly coordinate closely to resolve these shortcomings and limitations.

Regarding the issue of issuing and using new-model ordinary passports, the Minister of Public Security said that the new passports are issued in accordance with the law and international practices. The refusal of some countries to issue visas to new-model Vietnamese passports is only a technical issue.

To solve the above problem, the Ministry of Public Security has agreed with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to initially annotate the "place of birth" on the new passport model if individuals request it to create favorable conditions for Vietnamese citizens when going abroad to study, work, travel, and work. In the long term, the passport model will be revised.

Minister of Public Security To Lam answers questions from National Assembly deputies. Photo: Quochoi.vn

Answering the question of delegate Nguyen Yen Nhi (National Assembly Delegation of Ben Tre Province) about "black credit", the Minister of Public Security affirmed that over the past 3 years, the police force has coordinated with relevant forces to handle, resolve and suppress strongly and has controlled and pushed back this type of crime, no longer complicated, public, and rampant as before. However, the situation is still potentially complicated, especially lending via the Internet. Recently, the police force has dismantled a large-scale gang operating in many provinces and cities, with foreigners participating in operations on a very large scale, with the amount of money reaching thousands of billions of VND.

The Minister of Public Security also outlined solutions for the coming time, including continuing to maintain the momentum of attacking and strongly suppressing crimes related to "black credit", and not being complacent. One of the current fundamental measures is to use citizen identification to make loans, solving problems of credit and property mortgage, whereby banks and financial institutions can immediately identify borrowers very accurately.

Explaining this issue further, Governor of the State Bank Nguyen Thi Hong said that recently, the State Bank has issued synchronous legal regulations on credit institutions lending to customers with clear regulations on loan conditions, customers clearly state the loan amount and repayment capacity, and agree on the repayment period. In reality, there will be cases where customers cannot repay the debt, they can request a debt extension, have a request and prove their ability to repay the debt according to the new term.

State Bank Governor Nguyen Thi Hong outlines solutions to prevent "black credit". Photo: Quochoi.vn

The Governor of the State Bank said that the network of branches and transaction offices of credit institutions is currently very diverse, along with financial companies and microfinance organizations. Therefore, when there is a need for loans, people should approach official channels. In the coming time, the State Bank will continue to strengthen information dissemination on loans and credit access so that people can access capital from official channels.

Reporting further on a number of issues of concern to National Assembly deputies, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh said that the Government and the Prime Minister have focused on directing ministries, branches and localities to resolutely implement documents of the Party and the National Assembly, which have significantly contributed to the goal of maintaining political security, ensuring social order and safety, human security, economic security, cyber security, building society, and order and discipline. However, the situation of crime and law violations is still complicated. Crime prevention work in some localities has still allowed some serious crimes to occur.

Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh further clarified issues of concern to delegates. Photo: Quochoi.vn

In the coming time, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the Government and the Prime Minister will continue to direct the Ministry of Public Security to closely coordinate with the Ministry of Information and Communications and network service providers to deploy technical solutions according to regulations to prevent and eliminate bad information as well as prevent gambling activities. Strengthen state management of security and order, strictly manage pawnshops, financial lending service businesses. Continue to deploy high points to strongly attack and suppress all types of crimes, including drug crimes, black credit, and usury, contributing to deterrence, education, and general prevention.

At the same time, there are solutions to prevent and handle the situation of subjects using bank accounts, phone numbers that are not their own, creating websites to commit crimes. Effectively deploy the application of the national database on population, databases of ministries and branches in general state management, management of bank account numbers, social network accounts in Vietnam, focusing on removing difficulties and obstacles, creating favorable conditions for organizations and individuals to access loans from credit institutions, contributing to limiting the need for people to resort to black credit.