Under Vietnam Law, there is no specific legal instrument promulgating on use of personal data. However, this matter is mentioned in several law instruments of Vietnam like Vietnam Civil Code 2005 and law instruments regarding to electronic commerce and information technology.
According to the Article No. 38 of Vietnam Civil Code, the collection and publication of information and materials on the private life of an individual must be consented by that person; in cases where that person has died, lost his civil act capacity or is under full fifteen years, the consent of his/her father, mother, wife, husband, adult children or representative is required, except for cases where the collection and publication of information and materials are made by decision of a competent agency or organization. In some other legal instrument in Vietnam, personal secret is translated into personal data.
The principal that collection of personal data and use such personal data for any purpose must be consented by such person is also repeated in other law instruments adopted by Vietnam Government.
According to Vietnam Civil Code, in case un-authorized use of personal secret cause damage to such person, the user shall be responsible to compensate such person for actual damages caused by un-authorized use of personal secret (Article 604). Furthermore, according to the Decree No. 174/2013/ND-CP dated 13 November 2013 on sanctioning administrative violations in the fields of posts, telecommunications, information technology and radio frequency (hereinafter referred to as “Decree No. 174/2013/ND-CP”), violation regarding to recording, collection, transmission, accession, collection, use of information on such field shall be subject to sanction of 2,000,000VND to 50,000,000 VND (Article No. 66 of Decree No. 174/2013/ND-CP). Furthermore, the enterprise can be applied the additional penalties such as withdrawal of service number for distribution of message and benefits generated from such use, recordal, transmission of such personal data.
