8 prohibited acts in electronic transactions

On the morning of June 22, after listening to the explanation of Chairman of the Committee on Science, Technology and Environment Le Quang Huy, the National Assembly voted to pass the Law on Electronic Transactions (amended) with 468/477 delegates in favor, reaching a rate of nearly 95%.

A citizen is conducting an electronic transaction instead of a paper document.

The revised Law on Electronic Transactions consists of 7 chapters and 54 articles. According to Article 6, Chapter I, there are eight prohibited acts in electronic transactions, including:

1. Taking advantage of electronic transactions to infringe upon national and ethnic interests, national security, social order and safety, public interests, and the legitimate rights and interests of agencies, organizations, and individuals.

2. Illegally obstructing or preventing the process of creating, sending, receiving, storing data messages or committing other acts aimed at destroying the information system serving electronic transactions.

3. Illegally collecting, providing, using, disclosing, displaying, distributing, or trading data messages.

4. Illegally deleting, destroying, forging, copying, distorting, or moving part or all of a data message.

5. Creating data messages to commit illegal acts.

6. Fraud, forgery, appropriation or illegal use of electronic transaction accounts, electronic certificates, electronic signature certificates, electronic signatures.

7. Obstructing the choice of conducting electronic transactions.

8. Other acts prohibited by law.

Compared to the Law on Electronic Transactions from 2005, the amended Law has added clause 1. In addition, the scope of prohibition on "fraud, forgery, appropriation, and illegal use" in Article 6 is also expanded to include electronic transaction accounts, electronic certificates, and electronic signature certificates, instead of only applying to electronic signatures as in the old law.

According to the amended Law, many elements in electronic transactions will have equivalent value in paper documents. For example, in the conclusion and implementation of electronic contracts, notifications in the form of data messages have the same legal value as notifications in paper documents. Digital signatures also have the same legal value as individual signatures on paper. Master data in the national database has official usage value, unless otherwise provided by law.

However, to replace paper documents, the converted data message must meet the following requirements: Information must be guaranteed to be as intact as paper documents; accessible and usable for reference; have a separate symbol confirming that it has been converted from paper documents to data messages and information of the agency, organization or individual performing the conversion.

In the context of increasingly growing cross-border transactions, the amended Law also recognizes foreign organizations providing electronic signature certification services in Vietnam, provided that they have a representative office in Vietnam; are legally established and operate in the country of registration; and have a technical audit report. Electronic signatures provided by foreign entities must comply with technical standards and regulations on electronic signatures and electronic signature certificates as prescribed by law.

The Minister of Information and Communications shall detail the recognition of organizations providing foreign electronic signature certification services, foreign electronic signatures, and foreign electronic signature certificates in Vietnam.

The Law on Electronic Transactions was first issued in 2005 and is considered to play an important role in creating a legal basis to promote electronic transactions, promote the application of information technology and administrative reform. However, the Law has some shortcomings in terms of regulations to ensure the legal value of electronic transactions, regulations on the conclusion and implementation of electronic contracts, regulations on security, safety, protection and confidentiality in electronic transactions.

According to the drafter's submission, the amended Law is built in a direction consistent with the development of Industry 4.0 and the digital economy, in accordance with international treaties related to free trade to which Vietnam is a member, to facilitate the promotion of development as well as protect the rights and legitimate interests of parties participating in electronic transactions.

According to VnExpress