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Permanent Deputy Minister of Ethnic and Religious Affairs Nguyen Hoai Anh chaired a meeting in Hanoi on Sept. 16 to review progress on the development of the national ethnic minority database. Leaders of several departments and units under the ministry attended.
Nguyen Hoang Hai, deputy director of the ministry’s Digital Transformation Center, said work on professional procedures, data creation, platform development and preparations for data connection and sharing was being carried out simultaneously.
The Ministry of Ethnic and Religious Affairs has issued decisions defining categories of data and assigning responsibility for managing, collecting, creating and updating them. Its units are continuing to develop a data dictionary, determine the scope of open data and provide guidance for local authorities on entering information.
The ministry’s ethnic data collection platform at dldt.bdttg.gov.vn is also being developed to support data collection and creation by departments, affiliated units and local authorities.
According to the latest progress report, as of Sept. 15, data creation functions had been deployed for 10 of the 15 data groups planned for the platform. A total of 3,555 account registration requests had been approved, an increase of 1,379 from the previous week.
Several data groups have already recorded tangible progress.
Profiles describing all 53 of Vietnam’s officially recognized ethnic minority groups have been entered for further review and completion. Eleven of the country’s 34 provincial-level localities have updated 678 records on recognized influential individuals within ethnic minority communities.
The database on ethnic minority policies has been updated with 211 documents, while the science, technology and innovation section contains 12 tasks. Another dataset covering responses to petitions from voters, National Assembly deputies and local authorities has been updated with 20 documents covering 106 petitions.
For data defining ethnic minority and mountainous areas, information from 15 provinces has been uploaded, together with available classifications of communes and villages.
Data on outstanding ethnic minority pupils, students and young people in 2025 has also been reviewed and confirmed as eligible for sharing. Work is continuing on a mechanism to cross-check personal identification information against Vietnam’s national population database.
On Sept. 10, the parties involved confirmed successful testing of data transmission and reception in the National Data Center’s test environment.
Two groups were successfully transmitted during the trial: general information on ethnic minorities and data defining ethnic minority and mountainous areas.
The relevant units are now finalizing the scope of information to be shared while reviewing the data, approval procedures and digital-signature requirements needed to move from testing to official data sharing.
Ensuring quality and legal validity
At the meeting, officials discussed technical and professional requirements for the first two datasets to be shared.
The information must be cleaned and contain all required fields. It must also be approved by the unit responsible for creating it and digitally signed at the individual-record level. A centralized digital-signature mechanism for data transmission is also being developed.
Single sign-on using VNeID, Vietnam’s national electronic identification system, will be added later in line with the technical coordination roadmap.
Progress reports nevertheless identified several issues requiring early attention.
The pace of data creation remains uneven among localities, with some still awaiting official guidance on the scope of information, required fields, responsibilities at provincial and commune levels, and procedures for reviewing and validating records.
Some platform functions also depend on the completion of professional input requirements, sample datasets or connections to existing systems.
Officials stressed that progress should therefore not be measured simply by the number of records entered. A clear distinction must be made between information that has merely been uploaded and data that has been checked, cleaned, approved and made ready for sharing.
Concluding the meeting, Permanent Deputy Minister Nguyen Hoai Anh said the completion deadline would remain unchanged and instructed the relevant units to take greater initiative in implementation.
Immediately after the meeting, the Policy Department, Digital Transformation Center and supporting unit were instructed to thoroughly review the legal validity and reliability of the information, complete approval and digital signing procedures, and upload the two priority datasets to the system.
The connection with the National Data Center must be completed before Sept. 20.
For information related to Vietnam’s national target programs, Nguyen Hoai Anh called for immediate coordination with the National Office for Ethnic and Mountainous Affairs.
For data groups whose platform modules have already been completed but remain short of information, the Policy Department was assigned to work with relevant units to accelerate updates and propose solutions for problems beyond their authority.
The Digital Transformation Center was also instructed to coordinate with ministry departments and units to establish specific completion, certification and connection milestones for each dataset, allowing them to be brought online progressively.
The supporting unit will continue completing the remaining modules and preparing demonstrations for ministry leaders.
For datasets requiring information from outside organizations, relevant units were instructed to prepare requests to the agencies concerned, ensuring that development of the national ethnic minority database remains on schedule while meeting requirements for quality, legal validity and practical usability.
Hoang Quy
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