Illustrative image (Photo: baodauthau.vn)

According to the ministry’s report delivered at a meeting on March 12 to review the project, 59 out of 63 provinces and cities nationwide have finished collecting information from about 80 million people.

The ministry has connected the ID card database with the national population system.

A national centre for population and ID numbers will be set up in December this year.

Minister of Public Security To Lam asked police departments at all levels to complete legal procedures to put into operation the system, noting that while building the database, units must ensure progress and follow the law.

He also ordered public security ministry agencies to share data with other ministries and sectors while ensuring information security.

The project to build the national population database with a total investment of more than 3.3 trillion VND (150 million USD) was approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc in 2015.

The Ministry of Public Security is responsible for building the database to store, standardise, digitise and manage the basic information of all Vietnamese citizens.

The plan includes building technical infrastructure, leasing transmission infrastructure, and building application software systems.

The project will form the basic content of the national scheme to simplify administrative procedures, citizenship documents and databases related to population management.

It will also serve to disseminate laws and policies concerning population management.

Last year, Vietnam conducted a National Population and Housing Census.

The results showed Vietnam’s population had exceeded 96.2 million people, making it the third most populous country in Southeast Asia after Indonesia and the Philippines, and the 15th most populous country in the world.

The population census information will be integrated into the national database./.VNA