Development On Data Privacy Regulation Of Vietnam

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,