People can use their identification accounts on VNeID to request digital certificates.

The Government has just issued Decree 48 amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 130/2018 detailing the implementation of the Law on Electronic Transactions on digital signatures and digital signature certification services.

Decree 48 is a Decree that the Ministry of Information and Communications has advised the Government to issue in line with the spirit of the Law on Electronic Transactions 2023, contributing to creating more favorable conditions for individuals and organizations participating in transactions in the electronic environment. It takes effect from May 9, 2024.

Talk to reportersVietNamNet, The National Electronic Authentication Center - NEAC under the Ministry of Information and Communications, the unit assigned to draft the new Decree, said that compared to Decree 130, the new point of Decree 48 is to allow individuals and organizations to choose to use additional forms of electronic identification accounts or chip-embedded citizen identification cards when carrying out procedures to request digital certificates for subscribers and request recognition of foreign digital signatures in Vietnam.

Specifically, the regulations on the application for digital certificates of subscribers in Article 23 of Decree 130 have been amended and supplemented, with the requirement that in addition to the application for a digital certificate in paper or electronic form according to the form of the organization providing public digital signature certification services (public CA), the application must also include one of the following documents: citizen identification card, identity card, identity certificate, passport, level 2 electronic identification account.

For organizations, the accompanying documents include: Decision on establishment or decision on regulations on functions, tasks, powers, organizational structure (or business registration certificate, or investment certificate) and Citizen identification card (or identity card, identity certificate, passport) of the legal representative of the organization; or use of the organization's electronic identification account.

The new Decree clearly stipulates that individuals and organizations have the right to choose to submit a copy from the original book, a certified copy, or submit a copy with the original for comparison or provide electronic data for use and exploitation by organizations providing public digital signature certification services as prescribed in Clause 4 of this Article.

In case an individual or legal representative of an organization provides or uses information in the citizen identification card, identification card, identification certificate or information in the individual's level 2 electronic identification account or information in the organization's identification account, the public CA will exploit the data in the electronic chip, data of the individual's level 2 electronic identification account, the organization's electronic identification account and will not require the individual or legal representative of the organization to submit accompanying documents.

The necessary condition for a public CA to be able to do the above is that the CA has a written approval to connect to the electronic identification and authentication system according to the law on electronic identification and authentication or has sufficient means to read data in the electronic chip and data in the level 2 electronic identification account.

Regarding foreign digital certificates and digital signatures in Vietnam, the new Decree amends and supplements Point b, Clause 1, Article 46 on the conditions for granting licenses to use as prescribed in Decree 130 of 2018. Accordingly, subscribers using foreign digital certificates in Vietnam must have an electronic identification account or some of the following documents to authenticate information on the digital certificate: Business registration certificate, investment certificate, establishment decision...