More closely protect the rights of telecommunications service users

On the afternoon of October 25, the 6th session of the National Assembly continued to discuss in the hall a number of contents with different opinions of the draft Law on Telecommunications (amended).

Giving opinions on the draft Law on Telecommunications (amended), delegate Duong Tan Quan, National Assembly Delegation of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province, highly appreciated the Drafting Committee for absorbing delegates' opinions and perfecting the draft law to basically meet current practical requirements.

Commenting on some specific contents related to ensuring information confidentiality, the delegate said that according to current regulations, telecommunications service users must have the consent of the service users to disclose information related to telecommunications service users and that consent can be expressed in many different forms. However, the draft law stipulates: "Telecommunication service users agree to provide subscriber information after the telecommunications enterprise has clearly and publicly notified the user in a form appropriate to the purpose and scope of information collection and use."

According to the delegate, such a regulation is not appropriate, so it is necessary to consider in the direction that instead of regulating this for telecommunications enterprises, it is necessary to regulate the responsibility for state management agencies in sharing and securing information on the condition that they are equipped with modern information technology equipment, control users whose information is exploited, and do not disclose personal information.

Referring to the content of the Public Telecommunication Service Fund, delegate Nguyen Thi Viet Nga, Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Hai Duong province, commented that the draft law has amended many contents of the Public Telecommunication Service Fund and public telecommunication service activities in a more appropriate manner. However, the provisions in Article 32 of the draft Law on the Vietnam Public Telecommunication Service Fund are still general.

The delegate said that the regulations on organization, operation, funding sources, and use of funding sources for the operation of the fund's apparatus are not specific and do not ensure details for effective implementation. Specifically, regarding the conditions for assigning tasks to support, provide, and use public telecommunications services, terminal equipment, conditions for ordering support for the use of public telecommunications services, conditions for bidding, providing and using public telecommunications services, terminal equipment, and conditions for directly supporting users of public telecommunications services and terminal equipment. The draft law lists specific conditions, and the last condition is "other conditions". The delegate requested clarification of the content of "other conditions".

Expressing her opinion on switching networks while keeping numbers, delegate Trinh Thi Tu Anh, National Assembly Delegation of Lam Dong province, said that it is necessary to regulate the responsibilities of network operators when doing this.

According to delegate Trinh Thi Tu Anh, mobile number portability is a basic telecommunications service that all people enjoy. In Vietnam, mobile number portability is regulated in Circular 35/2017. However, after 5 years of implementation, there are still some problems as follows: The regulations in Circular 35 are still general, not specifically defining the responsibilities of network operators, causing network operators to not comply with the standards. In addition, network operators have put up barriers regarding commitment packages, which hinder people from exercising their right to mobile number portability. In addition, the technical systems of network operators have not met the requirements for online mobile number portability, the procedures are slow, time-consuming, inaccurate, and lack transparency.

Highly appreciating the draft revised Telecommunications Law this time, it has added regulations to ensure subscribers can switch networks while keeping their numbers; however, delegates suggested that there should be more specific and complete regulations, especially the sanctions section to ensure feasibility and compatibility with the regulations in Clause 4, Article 13.5 of the CPTPP Agreement.

In addition, there should be specific regulations to ensure transparency in granting telecommunications licenses to avoid negativity.

Commenting that the draft Law on Telecommunications has been revised, amended and supplemented relatively fully, delegate Tran Kim Yen - Ho Chi Minh City National Assembly Delegation pointed out that in order to protect the rights of telecommunications service users, the draft law has stated the rights and obligations of the parties involved in the transaction, however, in practice, service users are often disadvantaged, but the regulations on protecting service users in the draft law are still unclear. The delegate proposed to add Article 4 of the draft law on timely detection and handling of violations in the telecommunications sector to protect the rights of service users.

Regarding the telecommunications conditions when participating in the auction and selection of the right to use radio frequencies, delegate Tran Kim Yen proposed to determine radio frequencies as assets to be auctioned to ensure consistency with the provisions of the law on auctions and radio frequencies./.

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