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10 Dike - J. Dezso Markus Rsch. Grp. for Compar. Legal Hist. 17 (2026)
From Traditional Ethics and Family Values to Postmodern Phenomena: The Evolution of Legislative Thinking on Children's Privacy in the Context of Digital Transformation in Vietnam

handle is hein.journals/dkjldz10 and id is 17 raw text is: HUYNH THI TRUC, Giang Doi: 10.15170/DIKE.2026.10.01.02 PhD, Deputy Head of the Department of Judicial Law Can Tho University, Vietnam* NGUYEN THI MY, Linh PhD, Director of the Center for Comparative Law Can Tho University, Vietnam** From Traditional Ethics and Family Values to Postmodern Phenomena: The Evolution of Legislative Thinking on Children's Privacy in the Context of Digital Transformation in Vietnam This article explores the evolution of Vietnamese legislative thinking on children's privacy rights, tracing a shift from a traditionalframework rooted in family ethics and social norms towards legal responses to postmodern dynamics in the digital environment. In contemporary digital contexts, children are inc- reasingly datafled, governed by algorithmic systems, and influenced by artificial intelligence. The article develops a historical analyticalframework by examining the emergence ofchildren's rights protection in international human rights instruments and analysing the processes through which these standards have been internalised in Vietnamese law. From a legal-historical perspective, it identifies three stages in the development of legislative thinking on children's privacy rights and exposes persistent limitations, notably the predominance of ex post regulatory responses and the absence ofeffective technological risk-management mechanisms. On this basis, the article proposes directions for legislative reform aimed at strengthening a child-centred approach that is responsive to the structural challenges of the digital environment. Keywords: children's privacy rights, legislative thinking, personal data protection 1. Protecting children's rights in Vietnam: from historical foundations to digital-era challenges The protection of children's privacy is not a natural or inherent legal given, but rather the outco- me of a gradual historical development in international human rights thinking. A foundational milestone in this process is the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which for the first time recognised children as independent subjects of rights, possessing their own dignity, interests, and distinct needs for protection.1 On the basis of Article 16 of the CRC, children's privacy may be understood as the right to control access to, and the use of, information relating to them, encompassing personal space, private life, and personal data, as * ORCID ID: 0009-0008-3147-1880. ** ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6611-8982. 1 WARREN - BRANDEIS, The Right to Privacy 193; PALMER, Three Milestones in the History of Privacy 67. 17