In what appears to be a first for a public document from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Việt Nam, a massive “social listening” and digital tracking project has been explicitly mentioned.
Following the timeline: On April 8, the Party Central Committee issued Regulation No. 19, focusing on political and ideological work within the party. Considered the party’s “first systematic regulation” of its kind, it outlines the Communist Party’s goal to build a digital database system on politics and ideology.
The stated objective is to “proactively grasp ideological developments,” “assess and orient social public opinion,” and “promptly guide political and ideological directions within the party and society.”
Reading the document: The regulation provides specific parameters.
- “Social public opinion” is defined as the “opinions, attitudes, sentiments, and reactions” of the public.
- “Digital data on political and ideological work” is classified as a system of information and data collected, digitized, stored, and managed using digital technologies to serve the purposes of “monitoring, analyzing, evaluating, and forecasting ideological trends and social public opinion.”
Within this framework, information is categorized into two types: harmful information (false, distorted, or inciting content against the party, the state, and the regime) and positive information (truthful information aligned with the party’s guidelines and the state’s laws and policies).
Notably, this new database will be synchronized with the existing “cadre data system” and shared with Party committee officials. This integration aims to facilitate officials in “monitoring, aggregating, evaluating, orienting, and tracking trends in ideological developments.”
Regulation 19 also encourages committee members to increasingly apply digital technology, artificial intelligence, and big data to forecast future ideological trends.
Unclear points: Despite these broad directives, the regulation does not specify exactly how the “digital data on politics and ideology” will be collected, nor the precise methodology by which “social public opinion” will be “monitored, analyzed, evaluated, and forecast.”
Context: This push for digitization follows the Second Plenum of the Central Committee in late March, which resulted in a series of new decisions, including Resolution 04 on anti-corruption, wastefulness, and misconduct, and Regulation 20 on the Party Charter.
The ideological focus was reiterated in a recent interview with Quân đội Nhân dân newspaper, where President Tô Lâm stressed that political and ideological work requires “special importance.” He warned that without “high unity within the party” and “consensus in society,” desired outcomes would remain difficult to achieve.
Overview: Vietnamese authorities already possess broad powers to collect, control, and digitize the population’s personal data. Under General Secretary Tô Lâm, a former Minister of Public Security, this trend of expanding data collection and citizen control has intensified across multiple sectors.
Hoàng Nam wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on April 14, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine has the copyrights of the English translation.
