On December 31, the National Cybersecurity Association organized a seminar "Protecting Personal Data - Rights and Responsibilities". This is a specialized communication event before the Law on Protection of Personal Data officially takes effect from January 1, 2026.
According to statistics from the Department of Cyber Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention, in just the first 6 months of 2025, functional forces discovered and handled 56 cases related to illegal trading of personal data, with a scale of more than 110 million data records collected and illegally traded. This situation stems from the need to collect personal data to serve production and business activities. Taking advantage of this, many organizations and individuals have illegally collected data for personal purposes.
The Law on Personal Data Protection passed by the National Assembly on June 26, 2025 and effective from January 1, 2026 has clearly established the basic data rights of citizens, including the right to know, the right to consent, the right to access, edit and request data deletion; and at the same time stipulates the legal responsibility of state agencies, organizations and businesses throughout the life cycle of data collection, processing, storage and sharing.
Speaking at the opening of the seminar, Colonel Nguyen Hong Quan - Deputy Director of the Department of Cyber Security and Crime Prevention and Control (A05) - Ministry of Public Security emphasized that the right to protect personal data - previously understood as part of privacy - has now become an independent right, recognized and protected by law. Currently, about 80% of the world's population lives in areas with regulations on personal data protection; Vietnam is also not outside this trend.
The promulgation of Decree 13 and then the Law on Personal Data Protection - effective from tomorrow, January 1, 2026 - is a step showing the State's strong commitment in building a safe digital environment, ensuring human rights in cyberspace.
According to Senior Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Dinh Do Thi - Deputy Head of the Advisory Department of the Department of Cyber Security and High-Tech Crime Prevention (A05 - Ministry of Public Security), the Law on Personal Data Protection creates a complete and comprehensive legal corridor, creating favorable conditions for state management agencies to implement measures, tasks, and solutions to best and safest protect personal data of users, agencies, organizations, and businesses.
The law also attaches responsibilities and obligations to each related subject and applies measures to protect personal data from the stage of creation, storage, transmission, to all other stages related to data processing, all measures must be applied to protect the safety of user data.
Mr. Ngo Tuan Anh - Deputy Head of Data Security and Personal Data Protection Department, National Cyber Security Association said that first of all, it is necessary to always uphold the law. At the same time, to protect personal data, it is necessary to deploy training to raise awareness of the obligations to be complied with, assess the status quo before and after deployment, and continuously monitor compliance...
The seminar is expected to contribute to raising social awareness about protecting personal data, promoting compliance with the law in the digital environment, gradually forming common standards on data rights in mass media, towards the goal of building a safe, transparent and reliable digital environment, with a development model.
