Chapter II

ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE RESULT AND DOCUMENT DIGITIZATION

Article 4. Documents to be digitized

1. Documents submitted by organizations and individuals submit to complete administrative procedures, including the following types:

a) Documents which are administrative procedure results given previously;

b) Documents to be digitized as prescribed by relevant laws;

c) Documents that need digitization at the request of managers and classified in Decisions of the Minister, Heads of ministerial agencies, Governmental agencies, Presidents of the provincial People’s Committees;

d) Documents other than those prescribed in Points a, b and c of this Clause and are digitized at the request of organizations and individuals during administrative processes.

The above-mentioned documents shall be submitted as originals, certified true electronic copies extracted from the master register, certified true electronic copies of originals; electronic photocopies with originals to be compared during administrative processes.

2. Results of verification and response to agencies and units participating during administrative processes, unless otherwise provided for by specialized laws.

3. Administrative procedure results which are still effective as prescribed in Article 25 of Decree No. 45/2020/ND-CP dated August 08, 2020 on administrative procedures by electronic means.

4. The following documents shall not be digitized:

a) Documents which have been shared in the form of data by national database, specialized database, National Public Service Portal and Ministerial and provincial administrative procedure information systems and have legal values;

b) Documents which are photocopies and certified true photocopies, except for electronic certified true copies of originals according to the regulations in Clause 1 of this Article;

c) Documents that only need to be presented when submitting administrative procedure dossiers;

d) Other classified documents according to regulations of law.

Article 5. Persons responsible for digitization

Persons responsible for digitization include

1. Officials, public employees who receive, process and return administrative procedure results.

2. Officials and public employees other than those prescribed in Clause 1 of this Article who are assigned to digitize administrative procedure results which are effective as prescribed in Article 25 of Decree No. 45/2020/ND-CP dated August 08, 2020 on administrative procedures by electronic means.

3. Officials and employees of public postal service providers and other cases who are assigned to assume document digitization according to the regulations in Point b Clause 3 Article 1 of Decree No. 107/2021/ND-CP dated December 06, 2021 on amendments to certain Articles of Decree No. 61/2018/ND-CP dated April 23, 2018 of the Government on implementation of single-window system and interlinked single-window system for handling administrative procedures.

Article 6. Requirements for administrative procedure result and document digitization

1. During the digitization process, the sufficiency, accuracy, completeness of data of digitized documents and the adequacy of digitization contents and procedures must be ensured.

2. The digitization must satisfy principles for protection of personnel data, not violate or affect legal rights and interests of organizations and individuals.

3. Electronic data of documents must include metadata fields to be saved to reuse in handling relevant administrative procedures.

Article 7. Digitization procedures

A digitization procedure includes the following steps:

1. Photocopy documents and convert them into electronic forms;

2. Extract data.

3. Issue of digitization result codes.

4. Save digitization result.

Article 8. Photocopying documents to convert them into electronic forms

1. The person who performs digitization shall photocopy each type of documents to convert them into electronic documents and put his/her granted personal digital signature to the electronic documents before moving to data extraction. When adding the digital signature, information including the name of the person who prepared the photocopy, photocopy time and position of the digital signature must be shown on the top left corner of the first page of the photocopy.

2. The following requirements must be satisfied when making photocopies:

a) The number of originals must be determined according to the number of photocopies to ensure that all originals must be digitized;

b) The entire document must be involved, and photocopies must be accurate, complete and sufficient when comparing to originals;

c) The number of pictures in photocopies must be equal to the number of the physical pages and arranged in the correct order;

d) For pages with notes, two photocopies shall be made, including one with a note on the document and another with note removed;

d) The data integrity must be ensured during the process of transfer;

e) Technical parameters of photocopies must satisfy standards for input data of database on archive documents in Circular No. 02/2019/TT-BNV dated January 24, 2019 of the Ministry of Domestic Affairs on standards of input data and requirements of electronic archive document preservation.

3. Documents of which photocopies used to convert into electronic forms are not required:

a) Documents submitted to follow administrative procedures by electronic means;

b) Documents specified in Clause 2 Article 4 of this Circular;

Article 9. Data extraction of a document

1. The data extraction shall be carried out by using the OCR technology; in case OCR technology cannot be used, officials and public employees shall record data by themselves end ensure the accuracy in comparison with the printed documents. Information of documents and administrative procedure results must be preserved as much as possible in order to satisfy the requirements for management, access and use thereof at the maximum when carrying out data extraction.

2. The extracted data must at least include the following metadata fields:

a) Document type code;

b) Identification number of an individual/Electronic identification number of an organization (hereinafter referred to as “identification number of organization or individual).

In case a document does not include an identification number of an individual, it shall be replaced with his/her full name and date of birth; if a document does not include electronic identification number of an organization, it shall be replaced with the organization's name and year of establishment;

c) Document’s name;

d) Document number and symbol;

dd) Date of issuance;

e) Issuing agency;

g) Synopsis of the document;

h) Effective period (if any);

i) Effective scope (if any);

k) Other information and data as prescribed by relevant laws.

3. In case of digitization of one of the documents prescribed in Clauses 1 and 2 of Article 4, if the accuracy, sufficiency and legality of the document are ensured as prescribed, the person responsible for handling administrative procedures shall extract data from the electronic document and be responsible for the accuracy of the data after being extracted.

In case the administrative procedures are handled successfully, administrative procedure results, photocopies of each document and metadata shall be digitally signed according to regulations on true electronic copies of document documents in Decree No. 30/2020/ND-CP dated March 05, 2020 of the Government of Vietnam on records management.

4. In case of digitization of administrative procedure results prescribed in Clause 3 Article 4, the person tasked with digitization shall convert the photocopies of the results into electronic documents for digital signature implementation according to regulations on true electronic copies of document documents in Decree No. 30/2020/ND-CP dated March 05, 2020 of the Government of Vietnam on records management.

In case any incorrect information is detected during the process of digitization, such information shall be adjusted as prescribed by relevant laws.

Article 10. Grant of digitization result code

1. Digitization results of documents shall be saved according to codes using the following structure: <identification number of organization or individual>.<document type code>.<document number, symbol>.

2. For documents obtained from administrative procedure results, document type codes mentioned in Clause 1 of this Article shall be administrative procedure result codes on the National Database on administrative procedures; in case there is no identification number of organization or individual, the space for identification shall be empty and metadata prescribed in Point b Clause 2 of Article 9 shall be added.

3. For other documents which are not obtained from administrative procedures, document type codes mentioned in Clause 1 of this Article shall be drawn up according to the following structure: <administrative procedure code>.<document type code in accordance with regulations of the ministries, central authorities or ordinal number of document on the National Database on administrative procedures>.

Article 11. Saving digitization results

1. Document digitization results shall be updated and saved on the National Database, specialized database by persons responsible for handling administrative procedures according to regulations of relevant laws. In case relevant laws do not govern this issue, document digitization results shall be saved in data storages of administrative procedure dossiers, which is a department with the fuction of data storage to serve administrative procedures of ministerial and provincial administrative procedure information systems.

2. Document digitization results consisting of identification numbers of organizations and individuals shall be shown in electronic storages of organizations and individuals on ministerial and provincial administrative procedure information systems.

3. After document digitization results have been digitally signed by agencies and saved according to the regulations in Clause 1 of this Article and have legal values, the extracted metadata of documents and information in digitized documents shall have the same value.

4. Physical administrative documents after being digitized shall be stored according to regulations of law on archives and relevant laws and have the highest confirmation values in case of complaints and disputes.

5. Electronic storage limitation for electronic administrative procedure documents shall comply with regulations of law on archives and relevant laws.

Article 12. Administrative procedure results in electronic formats

1. Formatting structures of administrative procedure results in electronic formats must comply with relevant laws or be converted from physical documents to electronic documents in accordance with regulations in Articles 25, 26 and 27 of Decree No. 30/2020/ND-CP dated March 05, 2020 of the Government of Vietnam on records management.

2. Administrative procedure results in electronic formats must be handled to satisfy all metadata mentioned in Clause 2 Article 9 of this Circular and regulations on storage of electronic messages according to Law on E-Transactions.

3. Administrative procedure results in electronic formats shall be saved in the National Database or Specialized Database or Centralized Public Service Information Systems of ministries and central authorities according to regulations of relevant laws; and links to results of electronic administrative procedures shall be sent to Electronic storages of organizations and individuals on ministerial or provincial administrative procedure information systems competent to handle administrative procedures.

In case the National Database or Specialized Database or Centralized Public Service Information Systems of ministries and central authorities are not established, administrative procedure results in electronic formats shall be saved in Data Storages of administrative procedure dossiers, and shown in Electronic storages of organizations and individuals on ministerial or provincial administrative procedure information systems competent to handle administrative procedures.