Vietnam's 2013 E-Commerce Decree Consolidates Data Privacy Protections

For the past eight years, Vietnam has steadily expanded and strengthened its legislative protections of privacy in relation to e-commerce, and in consumer transactions generally. Government Decree 52 of May 16, 2013 on e-commerce (Decree No. 52/2013/ND-CP), which took effect on July 1, 2013, replacing a previous Decree, is Vietnam’s most detailed data privacy regulation so far. This paper explains the data privacy provisions in Vietnam's previous e-commerce and consumer laws, and the effect that the new Decree has on the data privacy principles, and remedies, which have cumulative effect through the existing and new laws. The privacy principles that are now made more explicit in the 2013 Decree are a reasonable approximation of the basic principles set out in the OECD Guidelines or the APEC Privacy Framework. To what extent these rights will be observed by businesses in Vietnam, or enforced by the relevant Vietnamese authorities, remains to be seen