Vietnam's New Cyber-Security Law A Headache In The Making

Vietnam's National Assembly yesterday overwhelmingly approved a heavily-debated Cyber-Security Law that could have significant impact on all online service providers with clients or customers in Vietnam.  While the stated aim of the new Law is to "protect national defense and ensure social order", it imposes obligations on digital businesses that could have far-reaching and unintended effects without necessarily advancing the Law's primary objective.  Key among such obligations are data localization and mandatory commercial presence rules that should worry not only tech giants but any company providing online services to customers in Vietnam.

While much of the commentary has focused on social network providers (e.g. – Facebook, Youtube) or 'pure tech' behemoths (e.g. – Google), the language of the Law is broad and potentially captures a wide range of business activities and models.  First and foremost, the Law appears to cover all enterprises (whether based onshore