Regulations requiring Facebook and Google to place servers in Vietnam: Emphasizing network security

The draft Law on Cyber ​​Security stipulates that foreign services currently provided in Vietnam such as Google and Facebook must place servers to manage user data in Vietnam, which has sparked a big debate.

Why this regulation?

A world-famous beer company with a factory in Vietnam has issued a “rescue” petition to the Ministry of Information and Communications, requesting YouTube and Facebook to remove false clips about the production of fake beer bearing their brand. However, Vietnam’s request for this has not yet been implemented.

In its report at the 3rd Session of the 13th National Assembly, the National Assembly's Economic Committee said that through the work of rectifying and handling false, distorted, provocative, and reactionary information on social networks, YouTube has so far removed over 4,400 clips with bad, harmful content; Facebook has removed 678 accounts and posts that violate the law. But these numbers are still too small compared to the amount of bad, harmful, and illegal information posted every day.

In fact, Vietnamese network operators are renting out, even waiving the service fee for server hosting and Internet connection to Google and Facebook. And these are all servers that manage user data.

Mr. Nguyen Chi Thanh, Chief of Office of the Vietnam Information Security Association, said that current law stipulates that telecommunications service providers are responsible for “deleting information with anti-state content, false information, and slander on cyberspace.” However, the companies only provide Internet access, and the information content is stored on the customer’s server, so the companies cannot do this.

According to Mr. Nguyen Hong Van, Deputy Director of the Institute of Information Security, what would happen if personal information, location, and habits of Vietnamese people were collected for the purposes of bad guys through the above services, while we were unaware and could not manage it? Suppose there was a cyber war attacking Vietnam from the above loopholes, the consequences would be unpredictable.

“Therefore, this regulation is necessary for the management agency to control foreign services in Vietnam. It is the foundation for the State to be able to take the next steps in ensuring national cybersecurity,” Mr. Van stated his opinion.

According to Dr. Mai Anh, Chairman of the Hanoi Information Technology and Telecommunications Association, network insecurity also stems from the design and construction process to form the national technical infrastructure. Therefore, the purchase of important equipment needs to be legalized to avoid the situation of pre-installed hidden devices.

Thousands of Google and Facebook servers have been located in Vietnam.

Experts say that there is currently a technical misunderstanding about the regulation of “locating servers in Vietnam”. Here, it is necessary to clearly distinguish between “user data management servers” and “service providing servers (servers)”.

Currently, companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft are providing cross-border services like Gmail, Drive, Google Plus, Youtube (Google), Facebook, Messenger (Facebook), Yahoo mail (Yahoo), Skype (Microsoft), Viber (Rakuten), which means providing services on cloud platforms and server locations are not specifically identified to users.

In fact, Vietnamese network operators are leasing, even waiving the service fee for server hosting and Internet connection to Google and Facebook. And these are all servers that manage user data.

Citing the number of Facebook accounts in Vietnam reaching 64 million, accounting for 3% of the total 2 billion members on Facebook, ranking 7th in the world, Mr. Dao Trung Thanh, Deputy Director of Technonologies, said: "I think Facebook will still comply with Vietnam's Cyber ​​Security Law based on their economic interests."

Moreover, with providers installing a large number of server systems in Vietnam, users will benefit from faster access speeds, because they access services locally and do not have to go through international gateways that depend on undersea fiber optic cables that often have problems. At the same time, the phenomenon of fake news, false news, and fabrication on social networks will also decrease.

Thus, the regulation on placing servers to manage user data is a technical measure to ensure safety, security, and a healthy Internet environment. And of course, there is no way that Facebook and Google will “leave” the Vietnamese market, which has 64 million users, bringing in nearly 400 million USD in revenue for them, where they even get free server placement.

According to Investment Newspaper