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Paper short abstract

This paper examines Vietnam’s proposed digital citizen rating system, showing how “digital citizenship” is co-opted to legitimise state surveillance and exacerbate social stratification within a broader digital authoritarian regime that constrains citizens’ digital rights.

Paper long abstract

To accelerate digital transformation, Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security has recently proposed a draft Resolution on the development of digital citizens. The most controversial element of this proposal is a points-based digital citizen rating system, whereby individuals accrue scores through participation in state-approved digital activities. Citizens are categorised into three tiers of digital credibility, which determine access to benefits such as fee waivers for online administrative services and tax incentives. Although framed as a tool to promote digital inclusion and participation, the proposal has sparked public concern over social inequality, surveillance, and its perceived resemblance to China’s Social Credit System.

Drawing on Bacchi’s (2009) “What’s the Problem Represented to Be?” approach, this paper critically examines how digital citizenship is discursively constructed and mobilised within this policy proposal, and with what implications for agency, rights, and freedoms. The study draws on policy documents and media analysis, situated within Vietnam’s broader political restructuring, including the revision of the Cybersecurity Law (2025), the expanding institutional power of the Ministry of Public Security, and enduring practices of digital authoritarianism such as constraints on freedom of expression, media self-censorship, and weak data protection.

Preliminary findings suggest two key dynamics. First, the framework of digital citizenship is narrowly adopted to legitimise intensified surveillance and to reframe compliance as civic virtue. Second, rather than directly replicating China’s model, Vietnam advances a distinct strategy centred on a state-controlled “super-app” ecosystem that enables comprehensive governance of citizens’ digital identities, financial transactions, and online expression.