Circular No. 32/2017/TT-BTTTT dated November 15, 2017 of the Ministry of Information and Communications on prescribing the provision of online public services and assurance of convenient access to websites or portals of state agencies

CIRCULAR

Prescribing the provision of online public services and assurance of convenient access to websites or portals of state agencies[1]

Pursuant to the June 29, 2006 Law on Information Technology;

Pursuant to the Government’s Decree No. 17/2017/ND-CP of February 17, 2017, defining the functions, tasks, powers and organizational structure of Ministry of Information and Communications;

Pursuant to the Government’s Decree No. 64/2007/ND-CP of April 10, 2007, on the application of information technology to state agencies’ operations;

Pursuant to the Government’s Decree No. 43/2011/ND-CP of June 13, 2011, on the provision of online information and public services on websites or portals of state agencies;

Implementing the Government’s Resolution No. 36a/NQ-CP of October 14, 2015, on an e-government;

At the proposal of the Director of the Authority of Information Technology Application,

The Minister of Information and Communications promulgates the Circular prescribing the provision of online public services and assurance of convenient access to websites or portals of state agencies.

Chapter I

GENERAL PROVISIONS

Article 1. Scope of regulation

This Circular prescribes the provision of online public services and assurance of convenient access to websites, portals or online public service portals (below collectively referred to as portals) of state agencies.

Article 2. Subjects of application

1. Ministries, ministerial-level agencies, government-attached agencies; general departments, departments and equivalent agencies; People’s Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities (below referred to as provincial-level People’s Committees) and their specialized agencies; People’s Committees of urban districts, rural districts, towns, provincial cities and municipal cities; and related organizations and individuals.

2. Agencies and organizations other than the entities mentioned in Clause 1 of this Article are encouraged to apply this Circular in an appropriate manner.

Article 3. Interpretation of terms

In this Circular, the terms below are construed as follows:

1. Home page means the first page which users see when they access a portal at its address registered by and allocated to an agency or organization.

2. Online public service portal means the sole access point to online public services of ministries, ministerial-level agencies, government-attached agencies and provincial-level People’s Committees.

3. User may be an organization or individual who exploits information or performs online public services on a portal to serve its/his/her needs.

4. Online public service provider means an agency receiving and providing online public services to users (below referred to as service provider).

5. Dossier means papers to be submitted or produced by an organization or individual performing administrative procedures to the agency competent to settle administrative procedures before the latter handles a specific job for such organization or individual.

6. Electronic administrative dossier means a dossier filed, sent, received and stored by electronic means.

7. Non-interactive electronic form means a form of administrative procedures (application form, declaration form) that is formatted and stored in an electronic file for download and filling in information.

8. Interactive electronic form (e-Form) means a dossier form of administrative formalities displayed in the format of computer application (usually in the format of web application) for users to provide and exchange data through the application of online public services. An e-Form must at least comprise the information fields of forms of administrative procedures (application form, declaration form). An e-Form collects data required by administrative procedures in a single format for the service provider. Such data are stored in the database of the application of online public services.

9. User authentication means a process to set up confidence in a user’s identity when he/she/it logs in and uses the information system.

10. Mobile devices are wireless networking devices installed with application software that are portable and usable in various environments. Such devices include small devices (like smart phones) and larger ones (like tablet computers).

Article 4. General principles for developing portals and online public services

1. The development of portals and online public services of state agencies must adhere to the principle of regarding users as the center.

2. The principle of regarding users as the center is as follows:

a/ Papers and information on users successfully provided to a state agency upon the performance of an online public service are not required to be provided to such state agency for the next performance if they remain valid as prescribed. For ministries, ministerial-level agencies and government-attached agencies and provincial-level People’s Committees that have connected and shared data among their attached agencies, such papers and information are not required to be provided to other agencies attached to such ministries, agencies and provinces for the next performance of online public services;

b/ Performing administrative procedures faster and reducing the number of times users have to appear at state agencies;

c/ Ensuring convenience for users.

Chapter II

PROVISION OF ONLINE PUBLIC SERVICES

Article 5. Requirements for levels of online public services

1. A level-1 online public service must sufficiently provide the following principal information:

a/ Name of the administrative procedure;

b/ Order of performance;

c/ Method of performance;

d/ Components and numbers of dossiers;

dd/ Processing duration;

e/ Entities subject to the administrative procedure;

g/ Administrative procedure processing agency;

h/ Results of performance of administrative procedures: clearly writing the final results of performance of administrative procedures;

i/ Information (if any) on application and administrative declaration forms, results of performance of administrative procedures, requirements, conditions, charges or fees;

k/ Forms of receiving dossiers and reply (directly, by post or online);

l/ Legal documents prescribing administrative procedures and decision announcing administrative procedures.

2. A level-2 online public service must fully satisfy the following requirements:

a/ To sufficiently provide principal information  such as the level-1 online public service;

b/ To sufficiently provide non-interactive electronic forms and allow users to download for declaration;

c/ To accept dossiers printed from non-interactive electronic forms after being filled in like those with declarations on normal paper forms.

3. A level-3 online public service must fully satisfy the following requirements:

a/ To satisfy requirements of the level-2 online public service;

b/ To sufficiently provide service forms in e-Forms to users for declaration and provision of relevant documents (if any) in attached electronic files and send dossiers online to service providers;

c/ To arrange, organize and store electronic administrative dossiers in databases for application of online public services to ensure the possibility of processing, searching, making statistics, summarizing, connecting and sharing with databases of relevant application systems;

d/ Transactions in the process of processing dossiers and providing services shall be carried out via the Internet;

dd/  The payment of fees and charges (if any) and receipt of replies shall be made at service providers directly or by post.

4. A level-4 online public service must fully satisfy the following requirements:

a/ To satisfy requirements of the level-3 online public service;

b/ To provide online payment functions for users to pay fees and charges (if any);

c/ Replies may be received online or sent by post or delivered directly to service users. Electronic results of online public services have the same legal validity as conventional results under specialized agencies’ regulations on electronic results. Online results may be notified under the agreement between users and service providers by one or more than one of the following forms: on portals with online public services; via result notification function of online public services; or users’ emails. The results may be sent through other electronic channels like text messages and Internet information exchange service.

Article 6. Publicization of list of online public services

1. Provincial-level People’s Committees shall fully and timely post the list of online public services of their attached agencies and units in the section “online public services” of portals of ministries, ministerial-level agencies, government-attached agencies; general departments, departments and equivalent agencies.

2. The list of online public services shall be classified by industry, sector and administrative grade and specify the levels of these services for convenient search.

3. The name of an online public service must have the same name with that of the equivalent administrative procedure prescribed in the relevant legal documents.

Article 7. Electronic administrative dossiers

1. For a non-interactive electronic form

a/ To be provided in a format text file as specified in the section “Documents on the list of technical standards on information technology application for state agencies” promulgated together with the Minister of Information and Communications’ Circular No. 22/2013/TT-BTTTT of December 23, 2013 (below referred to as Circular No. 22/2013/TT-BTTTT), or amending or updating documents, if any;

b/ To ensure the printed electronic form has similar size with the paper form and is clear for users to easily and accurately fill in.

2. Creation of electronic administrative dossiers

Based on the system’s processing and storage capacity and electronic administrative dossier’s quantity and quality requirements, a service provider shall determine parameters appropriate for the creation of electronic administrative dossiers and notify such to users upon their use.

3. Requirements for creation of electronic administrative dossiers

a/ Quality requirements for an electronic administrative dossier created by a scanner or digital image: The dossier must be clear with readable size so that its contents are readable on computer screens or on papers after printed;

b/ File format of an electronic administrative dossier after digitalization: Text and image format files of an electronic administrative dossier may apply text or image format mentioned in the Documents and Graphics section on the list of technical standards on information technology application for state agencies promulgated together with Circular No. 22/2013/TT-BTTTT or amending or updating documents, if any;

c/ A file capacity in an electronic administrative dossier: The maximum capacity of a downloaded file attached with the electronic administrative dossier shall be notified to users at the site for selecting the attached file on the e-Form.

Article 8. E-Forms

1. The interface of an e-Form must be intuitive, easy-to-use and convenient for users.

2. For the fields of data input into forms, data available in the database of the application of online public services shall be provided at the selected mode for users not to re-enter.

3. In the form, a direct instruction function shall be made available where the data are input for users to read instructions on declaration and use of services when necessary.

4. Online public services must provide the function of storing (saving into files or printing) users’ information inputted into e-Forms.

Article 9. Information exchange with users during the performance of level-3 and level-4 online public services

1. Level-3 and level-4 online public services should have the following essential functions of information exchange between service providers and users during the performance of services:

a/ To allow users to monitor and check the receipt and reply of results of performance of administrative procedures;

b/ To automatically notify information on the receipt and reply of results of performance of administrative procedures to users.

2. Forms of notification and exchange of information with users

a/ On the portal providing online public services when users log into the service;

b/ Via users’ emails;

c/ Via users’ text messages;

d/ Via Internet information exchange services;

dd/ In other forms using electronic means.

Article 10. User authentication in level-3 and level-4 online public services

1. Level-3 and level-4 online public services must authenticate users when the latter perform the service in conformity with the service’s requirements.

2. The method of user authentication shall be implemented at least through user name and password.

Article 11. Requirements for online public services

1. The instruction sections serving the provision of online public services on portals must at least include:

a/ The section guiding the provision of a number of common public services in order to help users understand procedures and order of service provision when wishing to perform a certain job;

b/ The section of common questions and answers to help users find out the answers to common problems upon the performance of administrative procedures and use of online public services.

2. Level-3 and level-4 online public services must satisfy the following minimum requirements:

a/ To be compatible with common web browsers;

b/ To be easy-to-find services: Users can easily find services after up to 3 clicks from the homepage of the portal providing online public services or with common search engines;

c/ To have an instruction mechanism for automatic information declaration: supporting users by automatically filling in their information if such information has already been provided by users upon their registration for accounts or their previous use of the services or state agencies’ information available in the database of the system of online public services; supporting the filling in or checking of information in the specified formats; and having detailed explanations of information needed to be entered (for information with specific requirements or specialized information);

d/ To have a function for users to evaluate their satisfaction with services after use (below referred to as evaluation function);

dd/ To ensure fast data processing and exchange time: In case the system realizes the data processing and exchange time exceeding 10 seconds, the percentage of completed tasks is required to be notified;

e/ To ensure stable operation: All online public services must operate round the clock to ensure all services are carefully tested before put into use to limit errors occurring during use; and notify information on maintenance and update and expected time of operation resumption on the portal providing online public services at least 1 working day in advance;

g/ To have an email address for users’ comments.

3. Portals providing online public services must have a function making statistics of dossier processing results of level-3 and level-4 online public services. Each service must notify statistics at least from the beginning of a year to present as follows:

a/ Number of received online dossiers;

b/ Number of processed online dossiers;

c/ Rate of online dossiers processed on schedule;

d/ Total number of dossiers received online and offline;

dd/ Figures of the degree of service user satisfaction according to each evaluation content specified in Article 12 of this Circular.

Article 12. Evaluation of user satisfaction at level-3 or level-4 online public service

1. Contents of evaluation

a/ Overall evaluation of the service; 

b/ Detailed evaluation of the service, including the level of the service convenience (easy-to-use service, response time of the service in communication and data processing); schedule level of state agencies in performance and reply of results; state agencies’ attitude toward supporting and performing online public services (the level of enthusiasm and the responsiveness of cadres and civil servants in instruction and performance);

c/ Three degrees applied to each content of evaluation: highly satisfied, satisfied and unsatisfied.

2. The evaluation function must at least contain the contents of overall evaluation specified at Point a, Clause 1 of this Article.

Article 13. Publicization of levels of online public services

1. Specialized information technology units of ministries, ministerial-level agencies and government-attached agencies, and provincial-level Departments of Information and Communications shall determine and publicize the level of each online public service provided by attached agencies of ministries, agencies and provinces into the list of online public services to be posted on portals of ministries, agencies and provinces.

2. The Authority of Information Technology Application of the Ministry of Information and Communications shall regularly or extraordinarily inspect the posting of the list of online public services on portals of ministries, ministerial-level agencies, government-attached agencies, general departments, departments and equivalent agencies and provincial-level People’s Committees.

Article 14. Assurance of effectiveness of the use of level-3 and level-4 online public services

1. Measures to ensure the effectiveness of the use of online public services:

a/ To select practical administrative procedures with high use demand to develop into level-3 or level-4 online public services;

b/ To examine and urge the receipt and processing of dossiers online;

c/ To disseminate online public services;

d/ To train and instruct users to use online public services;

dd/ To comply with Article 4 of this Circular.

2. Specialized information technology units of ministries, ministerial-level agencies and government-attached agencies shall advise ministers and heads of ministerial-level and government-attached agencies on the implementation of contents to ensure the effectiveness of the use of level-3 and level-4 online public services.

3. Provincial-level Departments of Information and Communications shall advise chairpersons of provincial-level People’s Committees on the implementation of contents to ensure the effectiveness of the use of level-3 and level-4 online public services.

Chapter III

ASSURANCE OF CONVENIENT ACCESS

Article 15. General provisions on design and development of portals and online public services

1. The design, development and provision of information and services on portals must satisfy the following requirements:

a/ To satisfy users’ demands;

b/ To comply with Article 4 of this Circular;

c/ To adhere to Vietnam’s e-government architecture framework, ministerial-level e-government architecture or provincial-level e-government architecture.

2. The connection between portals and application of online public services and other applications and databases within ministries, ministerial-level agencies, government-attached agencies and provincial-level People’s Committees for exchanging, sharing and reusing ministerial and provincial data shall be carried out via the integrated platform and data sharing.

3. The connection between portals and application of online public services by ministries, ministerial-level agencies, government-attached agencies and provincial-level People’s Committees, and national databases and central and local information systems for exchanging, sharing and reusing available information and data among ministries and between ministries/agencies and provinces must comply with Article 16 of the Minister of Information and Communications’ Circular No. 13/2017/TT-BTTTT of June 23, 2017, providing technical requirements for connecting information systems and databases with the national database.

4. Portals and level-3 and level-4 online public services must support IPv6 new generation Internet addresses and DNSSEC in line with the IPv6 deployment roadmap under the national action plan on IPv6 and a scheme on the application of DNSSEC for the domain name system (DNS) “.VN”.

Article 16. Portal interface, layout and minimum properties

1. The interface must ensure convenience for users with clearly distinguished information areas.

2. Major information items specified in Chapter II of the Government’s Decree No. 43/2011/ND-CP of June 13, 2011, on the provision of online information and public services on websites or portals of state agencies (below referred to as Decree No. 43/2011/ND-CP) shall be displayed on the homepage or in the main directory and at a convenient recognizable site for users.

3. Layout of the homepage of a portal

The homepage has 3 parts: the header, the body and the footer.

a/ The header consists of a banner and a menu. The banner lays in the top position of the homepage with the following principal details: national emblem or logo of the agency and the full name of the agency in Vietnamese in regular font. Under the banner is the menu with properties, including homepage, introduction, online public service, site map and other properties;

b/ The body lays in the middle between the header and the footer, showing main information items, headlines of selected and updated news and articles, and main properties for users to seek and exchange information with state agencies;

c/ The footer displays information on copyright and the agency managing the portal, covering such details as the name of the agency, administrators, address, telephone number and email address.

4. The minimum properties of a portal:

a/ Supportive functions prescribed in Article 15 of Decree No. 43/2011/ND-CP;

b/ The function of a site map: The site map must display adequately and accurately text information items and services of a portal in tree structure for users or in an XML file for search engines.

Article 17. Access support for mobile devices

1. Portals of state agencies must support mobile devices in access to main information items prescribed in Chapter II of Decree No. 43/2011/ND-CP;

2. Portals of state agencies are encouraged to totally support access from mobile devices.

3. The design and development of portals supporting access from mobile devices are encouraged to comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 (WCAG 2.0 at http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20) and Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) or updated WCAG versions, if available.

Article 18. Supporting access to information by people with disabilities

1. Portals of state agencies must support people with disabilities in information access according to the following minimum requirements:

a/ To use suitable colors and contrast: There must be a sharp contrast between the background and text colors so as to support color-blind people. To refrain from using colors to highlight text within a paragraph. To encourage the application of properties which allow users to change the color of the background and the text and the contrast between the background and the text color;

b/ To refrain from using blinking characters or objects and automatically moving characters so as to use screen readers when necessary;

c/ To provide equivalent information: It is necessary to provide text to describe the contents of objects other than text such as icons, images, confirmation key, script fonts, charts, diagrams and image links, and text describing the main contents of audio and video news;

d/ Information orientations: To use meaningful phrases to make a link or use title attributes to provide additional information to clarify or describe the purposes of a link; to use heading attributes to divide different information sections on a web page;

dd/ To display datasheets: To supply brief information on all datasheets to describe data and titles of these sheets; to use tagging techniques to link data boxes to equivalent title boxes, for datasheets with rows or columns of different logical levels.

2. It is encouraged to create shortcut keys to access the minimum properties of a portal, particularly the homepage, site map and search; to integrate on the portal technologies and properties to support people with disabilities in the access to information (automatically readable contents or changeable font sizes).

Chapter IV

MANAGEMENT OF OPERATION OF PORTALS

Article 19. Assurance of the update and uninterrupted operation

Portal managing agencies and online public service providers shall:

1. Ensure time limits for information provision, processing and storage under Article 17 of Decree No. 43/2011/ND-CP.

2. Ensure human resources for managing, operating and maintaining portals and handling online public services under Section 1, Chapter IV of Decree No. 43/2011/ND-CP.

3. Maintain, upgrade and modify portals under Section 3, Chapter IV of Decree No. 43/2011/ND-CP.

4. Ensure updated, accurate and accessible information and online public services.

Article 20. Use of secure hypertext transfer protocol

State agencies must use Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS) to ensure safety for access to level-3 and level-4 online public services.

Article 21. Assurance of information and data safety

Portal and online public service managing agencies shall comply with the Minister of Information and Communications’ Circular No. 03/2017/TT-BTTTT of April 24, 2017, detailing and guiding a number of articles of the Government’s Decree No. 85/2016/ND-CP of July 1, 2016, on information safety assurance by level, and legal documents on information and data safety assurance.

Article 22. Inspection and evaluation of portals and online public services

1. Portals and online public services of state agencies shall be inspected and evaluated annually or extraordinarily at the request of competent state agencies.

2. Contents of inspection and evaluation: To inspect the observance of regulations on the provision of information and online public services and the development and management of portals under Decree No. 43/2011/ND-CP, this Circular and relevant legal documents and guiding documents.

3. Forms of inspection and evaluation

a/ Online inspection via direct access to portals of state agencies;

b/ Inspection by using software tools (the system of collecting and evaluating the use of information and online public services);

c/ Direct inspection at the head offices of portal managing agencies.

4. Responsibility for inspection and evaluation

a/ The Authority of Information Technology Application of the Ministry of Information and Communications shall regularly, annually or extraordinarily inspect and evaluate portals and online public services of ministries, ministerial-level agencies, government-attached agencies, and provincial-level People’s Committees; build, manage, maintain and operate a system of collecting and evaluating the use of information and online public services to inspect and evaluate the frequency of updating articles and the number of visits to information items as prescribed in Decree No. 43/2011/ND-CP and the number of subscribers and level of online public services; and guide and coordinate with related units in operating this system;

b/ Specialized information technology units of ministries, ministerial-level agencies and government-attached agencies shall inspect and evaluate portals and online public services of ministries/agencies and their attached units;

c/ Provincial-level Departments of Information and Communications shall inspect and evaluate portals and online public services of provinces, People’s Committees of all levels and provincial specialized agencies.

Chapter V

ORGANIZATION OF IMPLEMENTATION

Article 23. Implementation responsibility

1. The Authority of Information Technology Application of the Ministry of Information and Communications shall disseminate and guide the implementation of this Circular; inspect the observance of this Circular; advise the Ministry of Information and Communications on handling problems arising in the course of implementation of this Circular.

2. Specialized information technology units of ministries, ministerial-level agencies and government-attached agencies shall disseminate this Circular and guide attached units to implement this Circular; and perform the tasks specified in this Circular.

3. Provincial-level Departments of Information and Communications shall disseminate this Circular and guide state agencies in their localities to implement this Circular; and perform the tasks specified in this Circular.

Article 24. Effect

1. This Circular takes effect on June 1, 2018, and replaces the Minister of Information and Communications’ Circular No. 26/2009/TT-BTTTT of July 31, 2009, prescribing the provision of information and assurance of convenient access to websites of state agencies.

2. Any problems arising in the course of implementation of this Circular should be promptly reported to the Ministry of Information and Communications for consideration, supplementation and amendment.-

Minister of Information and Communications
TRUONG MINH TUAN