Cybercrime in Legislative Perspectives: A Comparative Analysis between the Budapest Convention and Vietnam Regulations

As one of the emergent countries in the Southeast Asia region facing to practical threats and potential risks from various types of cybercrimes, Vietnam has been continuing to improve their responsibilities and legislations to prevent, control and combat cyber-related crimes. The new Criminal Law of Vietnam (CCV) took effects in January 2018 with a number of specific points to legalize and penalize cybercrimes activities. Although this code is expected to be more effective than its precedence in combatting the impact of cybercrime, we are yet to ascertain whether the new code appropriately define cybercrime as per the common minimum standards stipulated by the Council of Europes Convention on Cybercrime. This paper uses the comparative legal research to compare the definition of cybercrime with its related regulations in CCV with that of European Convention. Findings pointed out although CCV 2015 has sufficiently criminalised several criminal acts committed online such as illegal access, system interference, and computer related fraud; it has failed to criminalise other equally dangerous criminal acts committed using its cyberspace. The acts of data interference, computer related forgery, misuse of device and child pornography are still not coded properly under the CCV to create massive loopholes in Vietnams legal framework. Some practical recommendations also call for further updates and researches