Vietnam: Promulgating regulations on digital signatures and digital certificates

According to Decree No. 130/2018/NÐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government, a digital certificate issued by the Root Certification Authority, a public certification authority, or a specialized certification authority of the Government or agencies or organizations must contain the following contents:

- Name of the certification authority;

- Name of the subscriber;

- Serial number of the digital certificate;

- Validity period of the digital certificate;

- Public key of the subscriber;

- The digital signature of the certification authority;

- Restrictions on purposes and scope of use of the digital certificate; etc.

Every agencies and organizations, state titles, competent persons of agencies and organizations under the provisions of law on the management and use of seals are entitled to be granted digital certificates of value as defined in clause 2 of Article 8 this Decree.

Digital certificate granted for the state title, the competent persons of agencies, organizations must clearly state the title of these persons.

Regarding to legal validity of digital signatures, Decree No. 130/2018/NÐ-CP stipulates that where the law defines that a document required to be signed, the requirement for a data message is considered as met if the data message is signed with digital signature and such digital signature is adequately secured as prescribed in Article 9 of this Decree.

The digital signatures are considered as secured electronic signatures if they meet the following conditions:

- The digital signatures are created during the valid period of digital certificates and inspected by the public key recorded on such valid digital certificates.

- The digital signatures are created by using the private key corresponding to public key recorded on digital certificates.

- Private Key is only under the control of the signer at the time of signing.

The digital signatures are created by using the private key corresponding to public key recorded on digital certificates granted by one of the following authorities:

- Root Certification Authority;

- Specialized certification authorities of the Government;

- Public certification authorities;

- Specialized certification authorities of agencies and organizations issued with certificates of eligibility for special-use digital signature security as prescribed in Article 40 of Decree No. 130/2018/NÐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government.

Decree No. 130/2018/NÐ-CP of Vietnam’s Government specifies that foreign digital signatures and digital certificates licensed in Vietnam are legally valid and effective as digital signatures and digital certificates granted by public certification authorities of Vietnam.

Conditions for using foreign digital certificates include:

- The digital certificate is still valid.

- It is licensed by the Ministry of Information and Communications for use in Vietnam and accepted in international transactions.

If a foreign digital certificate is used for servers and software, no license is required.

Source: Information Society Magazine

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