Decision 830/QD-TTg 2021 Program on support for children in the cyber environment 2021-2025

DECISION

Approving the Program on protection of and support for children to interact in a healthy and creative manner in the cyber environment in the 2021-2025 period^[1]

THE PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the June 19, 2015 Law on Organization of the Government; and the November 22, 2019 Law Amending and Supplementing a Number of Articles of the Law on Organization of the Government and the Law on Organization of Local Administration;

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

Pursuant to the November 19, 2015 Law on Cyberinformation Security;

Pursuant to the April 5, 2016 Law on Children;

Pursuant to the April 6, 2016 Law on Access to Information;

Pursuant to the June 12, 2018 Law on Cyber Security;

Pursuant to the Government’s Decree No. 56/2017/ND-CP of May 9, 2017, detailing a number of articles of the Law on Children;

At the proposal of the Minister of Information and Communications,

DECIDES:

Article 1. To approve the Program on protection of and support for children to interact in a healthy and creative manner in the cyber environment in the 2021-2025 period (below referred to as the Program) with the following contents:

I. OBJECTIVES

1. General objectives

a/ To protect confidential information on children’s private life and personal secrets when they access information and participate in activities in the cyber environment and prevent and handle acts of abusing the cyber environment to carry out prohibited acts against children in all forms in accordance with law.

b/ To provide knowledge and digital skills to children based on their age brackets for them to protect themselves and know how to safely interact in the cyber environment, such as using the cyber environment in a healthy and safe manner; self-protecting when interacting in the cyber environment and methods to identify, report on and denounce acts and cases of online child abuse.

c/ To conduct communications targeting the entire society, focusing on parents, teachers and child caregivers, about knowledge on and skills for supporting and guiding children to interact in the cyber environment in a safe, healthy and creative manner.

d/ To carry out solutions for proactively preventing and detecting acts of online child abuse; to ensure necessary conditions for children to take part in the cyber environment in a safe and healthy manner and work out appropriate solutions to support children in recovery from negative impacts of the cyber environment.

dd/ To form and universalize the ecosystem of Vietnamese products and applications in the cyber environment to meet children’s online learning and entertainment needs.

2. Specific objectives

a/ All primary schools, lower and senior secondary schools and child protection and nurturing establishments will carry out periodical programs on dissemination and education of knowledge and necessary skills for children to safely take part in the cyber environment.

b/ All children being victims of online abuse will receive support and intervention at their own request or at the request of their relatives or social communities.

c/ All organizations and individuals that are denounced or detected to commit violations of law against children in the cyber environment will be handled in accordance with law.

d/ Websites with the national domain name “.vn” and websites with IP addresses in Vietnam shall self-categorize contents suitable to different age brackets of children; if providing services and applications to children, they shall self-deploy solutions to protect children and support their parents or caregivers in managing children’s use of such applications and services.

II. TASKS AND SOLUTIONS

1. Building and improving legal corridors

- To review and improve legal corridors, mechanisms and policies on protection of and support for children to interact in a healthy manner in the cyber environment, following the child-centered approach in policymaking and consulting children on mechanisms and policies affecting children in the cyber environment; to concretize responsibilities of the heads of state administrative agencies from central to local levels for cases of online child abuse that cause serious consequences occurred in the fields or areas under their respective management.

- To propose the revision and addition of strict penalties so as to administratively sanction or examine for penal liability acts of online child abuse; to clearly specify responsibilities and obligations of parents, family members and child caregivers in the management and monitoring of children in access and interaction in the cyber environment.

- To propose a ban on all forms of creation, storage and sharing of images and video clips showing children as objects of sexual abuse for the purpose of law violation.

- To propose mechanisms and policies to attract enterprises to provide products, applications, and contents to support children to interact in a healthy and creative manner in the cyber environment.

2. Education and communications for the purposes of awareness raising and skill building

- To organize awareness-raising communication activities at the national level; to renovate modes and contents of communication activities toward friendliness and liveliness to attract children through the application of information and communication technology, the Internet and social networks. To display on central and local television channels the national child protection hotline 111 that receives information on child abuse and contact addresses of counseling and emergency relief centers and organizations.

- To incorporate into education programs contents to equip children with knowledge of, and raise their awareness about, the cyber environment and basic skills for using the Internet and ways to seek support when being abused online; to equip children with the basic “digital skill set” based on their age brackets; to accelerate the provision of support and counseling for children via school counseling in different forms. To develop education programs and forms for out-of-school children via community-based child protection systems, social organizations, residential groups and counseling centers.

- To encourage and urge families, parents, child caregivers, teachers, reporters, editors and journalists to proactively and regularly update themselves on knowledge and methods to guide children to protect themselves, explore information and have capability to detect and denounce acts showing risks of child abuse when participating in the cyber environment.

- To develop information and communications technology products and applications to support children in online learning so that children can access and exploit online resources in a proactive, creative, effective and safe manner. To timely commend and reward and expand good models and creative ways of development.

- To promote communications, especially on the Internet, about children’s rights and responsibilities to protect and support children in the cyber environment.

3. Implementing technical measures and solutions and technological applications

- To set up friendly information channels for forming a sole focal point in receiving reports on online child abuse images, videos and contents in the cyber environment; to create linkage so that Internet service providers can make automatic reports on harmful and child abuse contents in the cyber environment to competent state agencies.

- To put into use software and information and communication technologies and applications, data repositories and electronic publications in the education and training sector so as to raise the quality of online teaching and learning, and concurrently effectively manage students’ access to the Internet and renew methods of school-parent and school-student interaction, thus helping carry out digital transformation in a safe manner in the education and training sector.

- To set up Vietnam’s Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) database comprising information and metadata about child abuse images/videos and adopt mechanisms for competent agencies and related organizations and enterprises to update and analyze information so as to prevent the posting and sharing of child abuse images/videos in the cyber environment based on the application of modern technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data analysis; to strive to link with similar databases in the region and of international agencies and organizations specialized in child protection in the cyber environment.

- To implement technical solutions to link and share data, collect and analyze information, and supervise the blocking, filtering and removal of child abuse contents in the cyber environment. To request websites with the national domain name “.vn” and those with IP addresses in Vietnam to block and filter child abuse contents and display notices of suitable age brackets under the guidance of competent agencies.

- To encourage and call on Vietnam’s digital technology, digital content and digital communications enterprises to develop and master technologies for online child protection and support and applications and contents to help children interact in a healthy and creative in the cyber environment.

4. Improving the organizational structure and improving law enforcement capacity

- To continue improving the organizational structure, train and retrain the contingent of officers to meet professional requirements and timely cope with children-related issues in the cyber environment.

- To study the establishment of counseling and support centers to help children to psychologically, physically and spiritually recover when being abused online as well as provide legal aid for them. To arrange psychologists to provide person-to-person counseling to children abused or sexually abused online so as to minimize impacts from the beginning and accompany them in the course of crime investigation and handling and support and guide children during recovery.

- To develop a child online protection and support network with the participation of state agencies, social organizations, enterprises, experts, individuals at home and abroad and a number of children. This is the network for sharing experiences, supporting capacity building and awareness raising activities, providing conselling and assisting the implementation of administrative and technical solutions/measures for each member and the entire society regarding issues related to child online protection and support.

- To implement refresher training programs, build capacity, update knowledge, technologies, and counseling and psychological support skills for law enforcement forces and officers engaged in child protection, crime investigation, prosecution and trial for them to promptly grasp world information and situation, especially technology trends for preventing and handling cases of online child abuse.

- To formulate mechanisms for and process of coordination among related state management agencies in the receipt of information on, and investigation and handling of, acts of online child abuse, appointing a specific focal point to take charge of each step in the process; to establish mechanisms for inter-sectoral coordination in monitoring online child sexual abuse crimes.

5. Enhancing international cooperation

- To enhance cooperation between state agencies and socio-economic organizations at home and abroad and government-to-government cooperation, join international child protection organizations, commitments and networks and proactively participate in initiatives to help children interact in a healthy and creative manner in the cyber environment in line with the Party’s guidelines and State’s policies and laws; to carry out external communications concerning child online protection in a complete and regular manner. To actively implement cooperation activities, exchange legal frameworks and learn from international experiences to raise the capacity of Vietnamese agencies in child online protection.

- To study international experiences, transfer technologies and apply the world’s advanced technological solutions that have been proved to be effective in child online protection issues.

- To call for lawful international funding sources in accordance with law for the purpose of protecting and supporting children to interact in a healthy and creative manner in the cyber environment.

III. FUNDS FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROGRAM

1. From the state budget as prescribed in the Law on the State Budget.

Annually, based on the tasks assigned in the Program, ministries, central sectors and localities shall formulate implementation plans and fund estimates for implementation of the Program and include them in their annual budget estimate plans for submission to competent authorities for decision.

2. It is encouraged to mobilize funds from official development assistance (ODA) sources and contributions by organizations and enterprises and other lawful funding sources.

IV. ORGANIZATION OF IMPLEMENTATION

1. The Ministry of Information and Communications, the agency taking the prime charge of implementing the Program, shall:

a/ Review, amend and supplement according to its competence or propose competent agencies to amend and supplement legal corridors and policies on protection of and support for children to interact in a healthy and creative manner in the cyber environment.

b/ Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, Ministry of Public Security and related agencies in, setting up, operating and collecting data for Vietnam’s CSAM database; establish and organize the operation of the child online protection and rescue network and promulgate mechanisms and regulations on coordination of agencies, organizations and enterprises in blocking data and information on online child abuse.

c/ Build and develop technical systems supporting the linkage and sharing of data and collection and analysis of information so as to block child abuse contents and supervise the observance of competent agencies’ requests for promptly and timely blocking and removal of child abuse contents in the cyber environment by telecommunications service and Internet providers and enterprises and organizations providing services on the Internet.

d/ Set up portals, online applications and fan pages in online social networks with a great number of users in Vietnam to help children seek, receive and disseminate information, express their opinions and aspirations on fan pages and communications channels suitable to their ages, maturity, needs and capacity.

dd/ Develop a code of conduct on child online protection and coordinate with related agencies and organizations in disseminating the contents of the code to the entire society with priority given to and focus on parents, teachers and child caregivers.

e/ Assume the prime responsibility for organizing communications about the Program; direct press, radio and television agencies and grassroots information systems to accelerate communications to the entire society;  create materials for dissemination and provide the contingent of reporters, editors and journalists specialized in the fields of information technology and child protection with information on child online protection-related issues and technology trends for protecting and supporting children to interact in a healthy and creative manner in the cyber environment.

g/ Formulate and implement programs and activities to support and encourage enterprises to develop initiatives and provide technological solutions on information security so as to protect and guide children to safely interact in the cyber environment; propose to the Prime Minister a pilot mechanism on ordering the provision of products and services developed by Vietnamese enterprises which support children to interact in a healthy and creative manner in the cyber environment.

h/ Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in, participating according to its competence, or proposing the participation of Vietnam in international organizations and commitments on child online protection; assume the prime responsibility for providing contents on child online protection serving international rankings and evaluation.

i/ Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment and related agencies and organizations in, proposing ODA projects to implement tasks and solutions for the purpose of protecting and supporting children to interact in a healthy and creative manner in the cyber environment.

k/ Annually, coordinate with related ministries and agencies in forming a number of delegations to inspect child online protection work; make and distribute Vietnam’s annual reports on evaluation of the situation of, and propose solutions for, protection of and support for children to interact in a healthy and creative manner in the cyber environment.

l/ Make preliminary and final reviews and evaluate the implementation of the Program; when necessary, report to the Prime Minister for decision amendments and supplementations to relevant contents of the Program in order to make it suitable to reality.

2. The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs shall:

a/ Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union’s Central Committee and related agencies and organizations in, studying and proposing solutions to apply the child-centered approach and consult children or organizations representing children’s voices and aspirations in the process of making digital policies on children or concerning children.

b/ Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with related agencies in, conducting communications about and dissemination of child online protection knowledge and skills to the contingent of officers, civil servants, public employees and persons assigned with child protection work, and the network of child protection collaborators.

c/ Build and integrate online notification channels on online child-related issues in the national child protection hotline 111.

d/ Provide children with training in skills for self-protection when participating in the cyber environment and for healthy and creative interaction in the cyber environment.

dd/ Provide psychological counseling and support for children being victims of online abuse on the basis of incorporating and adding tasks to social relief establishments.

3. The Ministry of Education and Training shall:

a/ Assume the prime responsibility for formulating and incorporating the program on training on age-based “digital skill set” for children into education programs. The training program includes knowledge on the Internet and social networks; minimum skills to ensure information security; protection of personal information online; and how to identify online child abuse and where to find information and make reports, etc.

b/ Develop models and formulate regulations on management of online teaching and provide schools and teachers with instructional information on information security assurance and safe participation in the cyber environment in teaching and education administration.

c/ Coordinate with the Ministry of Information and Communications in deploying technical solutions in schools to monitor, block and filter access to illegal contents and inappropriate contents for students based on their age brackets; to link and share monitored and blocked and filtered data with the Ministry of Information and Communications.

d/ Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and competent agencies in, promoting international cooperation in information security assurance for children at schools.

dd/ Prioritize information and communications technology applications developed by Vietnamese enterprises in order to support education administration and teaching and learning online; assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with the Ministry of Information and Communications, Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs and related ministries and sectors in, developing a set of criteria and organizing the assessment and announcement of information and communication technology products and services meeting requirements to effectively support training, teaching and learning.

4. The Ministry of Public Security shall:

a/ Direct professional cyber security protection forces and specialized forces to apply measures to deter, detect, prevent and strictly handle acts of using the cyber environment to abuse children.

b/ Direct investigation agencies of all levels to receive and process denunciations and reports on acts of using the cyber environment to abuse children; coordinate with people’s procuracies and people’s courts of all levels in investigating, prosecuting and strictly adjudicating acts of online child abuse.

c/ Coordinate with the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs and Ministry of Information and Communications in deterring, detecting and preventing acts of using the cyber environment to abuse children.

d/ Formulate a coordination mechanism for and the process of receiving information, investigation, handling, sanctioning and prosecution of acts of online child abuse.

dd/ Fully and timely grasp information on those with previous convictions and criminal records of online child abuse and apply deterrent measures in accordance with law.

e/ Promote international cooperation in preventing and combating crimes, especially online child abuse crimes; coordinate with foreign law enforcement authorities in verifying, investigating and handling cases relating to Vietnamese child victims of online exploitation and abuse via INTERPOL cooperation channel and mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.

5. The Ministry of Planning and Investment shall coordinate with related ministries and sectors in mobilizing ODA sources for programs and projects on protection of and support for children to interact in a healthy and creative manner in the cyber environment.

6. The Ministry of Finance shall ensure annual funds for implementation of the Program in accordance with the Law on the State Budget and guiding documents.

7.  The Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuracy shall implement the process of adjudicating cases of child abuse in a convenient manner so as to minimize psychological and spiritual impacts on children; provide refresher training and equip officers working with children with necessary knowledge and skills in proceedings; and support children in procedures for proceedings, compensation, complaints and remedial measures for child victims.

8. The Vietnam Fatherland Front’s Central Committee, Vietnam Women’s Union, Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union’s Central Committee and central socio-political organizations shall direct and guide their member organizations and members to participate in mobilization and communications activities to raise the awareness about and responsibility for child protection, especially child online protection.

The Vietnam Fatherland Front’s Central Committee shall coordinate with central socio-economic organizations in implementing programs on oversight and social criticism on policies and laws concerning child online protection.

The Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union Central Committee shall increase communications and education about revolutionary ideals, ethics and cultural lifestyles for adolescents and children in the cyber environment, and implement movements and programs on building a safe and healthy cyber environment for adolescents and children.

9. Enterprises shall formulate policies and apply measures and solutions to prevent and handle online child abuse contents in their enterprises.

a/ Telecommunications and Internet service providers (ISP) shall prevent the sharing of, block and filter information harmful to children and infringing upon children and their rights when requested by competent agencies.

b/ Online electronic game service providers shall provide tools to control playing time and age of game players in order to protect children from abusing or being addicted to video games.

c/ Enterprises providing services in the cyber environment shall:

- Control the contents of information in the information systems or services they provide so as to avoid causing harms to children or infringing upon children or children’s rights.

- Obtain the consent of parents, child caregivers or children aged full 7 years or older when posting confidential information about children’s private life in the cyber environment.

- Use measures and tools to ensure the security of confidential information about children’s private life and danger warning messages when children provide or change confidential information about their private life.

- Give warnings or remove information and services that are harmful to children, and fake information and services that infringe upon the lawful rights and interests of children at the request of competent agencies.

- Set up features and integrate into the competent agencies’ feedback receiving systems that enable users to notify information and services harmful to children and fake and distorted information and services that infringe upon children.

d/ For smart mobile device, computer and software manufacturers and digital content service providers: To encourage the installation of software/solutions/tools that enable parents/guardians to manage and supervise children’s use before such products and services are marketed.

10. The Vietnam Television, Voice of Vietnam, Vietnam News Agency and press and communication agencies and mass media shall:

- Increase the length and content of news coverage to raise the society’s awareness of the importance and properly depict the reality of child online protection in accordance with law.

- Obtain the consent of parents or child caregivers or children aged full 7 years or older when posting confidential information of children’s private life in the cyber environment.

11. The Vietnam Information Security Association, Vietnam Digital Communications Association, and Vietnam Association for the Protection of Children’s Rights shall coordinate with state management agencies, and organizations and enterprises at home and abroad in implementing activities relating to dissemination, awareness raising and other related tasks; mobilize their members to develop products and services ensuring information security for children in the cyber environment; and periodically honor and reward organizations, enterprises and individuals for their great contributions to protection of and support for children’s healthy and creative interaction in the cyber environment.

12. Ministries, sectors and People’s Committees of all levels shall further organize and participate in activities relating to protection of and support for children to interact in a healthy and creative manner in the cyber environment; assign tasks to their attached units to participate in child online protection; direct mass organizations to join the movement to raise the awareness and gradually equip digital skills for children in their localities; and organize courses to provide knowledge and skills for parents and out-of-school children in their localities for them to be aware and have basic skills to self-protect them in the cyber environment.

Article 2. This Decision takes effect on the date of its signing.

Article 3. Ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, heads of government-attached agencies, and chairpersons of provincial-level People’s Committees shall implement this Decision.-

For the Prime Minister
Deputy Prime Minister
VU DUC DAM