Supervisory power

The advent of smartphones, the internet and social media has made surveillance even more powerful.

The story of “banning filming and taking pictures” at the citizen reception area in Hanoi will probably not have a clear legal conclusion of right or wrong. Both the supporters and opponents have provided specific legal evidence to defend their views, from the Constitution, the Law on Citizen Reception, to the document of the Government Inspectorate. But I think more about the relationship between the state and the people: the core issue is still trust.

Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Duc Chung receives citizens at the Hanoi City Citizen Reception Office. Photo: THANH HAI/PL City

Many citizens record videos and audio - openly or secretly - with the aim of keeping them as evidence "in case something happens". Meanwhile, Hanoi said that preserving the dignity and image of officials, as well as avoiding distortion and exploitation, are the main reasons for the above regulation. Both sides are on guard for possible contingencies.

Of course, trust—especially in government—doesn’t come naturally. It grows in part through surveillance. People may not need to know, but they have the tools to know what the government is doing if they want to. A security camera in a kindergarten won’t keep parents watching live streams all day, but it will give them peace of mind whenever they want to check on their kids.

In the pre-digital age, surveillance was difficult to carry out, except for public meetings or secret visits by leaders. This may have made it easier for officials, but at the same time it also created a power vacuum, gradually increasing people's dissatisfaction. Many feudal dynasties flourished and then collapsed when the central government lost control of the local situation.

This is the important implication of supervision: when people are empowered, the supervision mechanism on the one hand limits the wrongdoing of a part of the officials, on the other hand is a smokestack signaling the issues they care about to the state. In recent years, there have been many examples of policy changes from self-recorded clips of people, such as the handling of traffic police accepting money from passersby. No one still believes that accepting a few dozen is not considered corruption, as a major general said 7 years ago. At least, accepting bribes is no longer done openly as before. There are also many drivers who are "fined" for violations recorded by others.

The advent of smartphones, the internet, and social media has made surveillance even more powerful. In 2010, the image and story of a vegetable vendor who set himself on fire in Tunisia became the catalyst that shook North Africa.

Of course, the greater the power, the greater the possibility of abuse, as the wave of fake news that has caused chaos around the world in the past two years. Perhaps that is also the main reason why the government has decided to ban filming and taking pictures without the consent of officials in the reception room. Mr. Nguyen Duc Chung, Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee, mentioned the risk of "cutting content and posting it online for other purposes" when asked about the above regulation.

But if disinformation, fake news, and incitement to violence are regulated by other laws – and even with severe penalties – why restrict the rights of so many people just because of the risk posed by a very small group? This is no different than banning cars because some reckless drivers cause accidents on the road. The government cannot assume that anyone who films has bad intentions.

Therefore, if the city wants to, it can also directly regulate the above-mentioned worrying behaviors, such as requiring citizens to have a serious and proper attitude when working, or even refuse to work with those who intentionally cause trouble. I believe that state agencies have the ability, and have done so many times.

Looking further, it is a story of whether the state serves the people or the people serve the state. Hanoi’s regulations bring convenience to officials: they have the right to disagree when people ask for permission to film or take pictures, and even when people request to extract data from the reception room, the two sides must agree on the content “in writing”. This means that if the understanding of the people and the officials is different, the people cannot use that record to complain to other agencies.

That concern brings us back to the issue of trust. The state may be right, but a right policy can only be effectively implemented when it is supported by the people, not by the tools of state power. To gain that support, in addition to the state apparatus having to be transparent, the people need their own monitoring tools. The people have their own reasoning: if the state has done nothing wrong, why should they be afraid of being filmed or photographed?

What is worrying is the mentality of “fear of the people”. According to a quick survey by Thanh Nien newspaper, there are 32 provinces that have regulations prohibiting filming and taking pictures in the internal regulations for receiving citizens. This number for ministries and branches is 6.

To me, those numbers are not a good indicator, because public trust and state secrecy are inversely proportional.