Special investigative measures and the right to privacy in Vietnam: A comparative analysis with European human rights standards

Abstract

From a comparative legal perspective, the regulation of special investigative measures in Vietnam reveals both progress and paradox. The codification of covert techniques such as surveillance, interception, and data collection has transformed informal police discretion into a framework of procedural legality. Yet, this evolution remains largely internal to state institutions and insufficiently aligned with the external safeguards of human rights law. The Vietnamese system relies on prosecutorial authorization, lacks judicial pre-approval, and omits a proportionality test that would balance state necessity against individual privacy. By contrast, European jurisprudence, grounded in Articles 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and 17 of the ICCPR, regards legality, necessity, proportionality, and independent oversight as indispensable to the rule of law. The absence of these principles in Vietnam’s practice marks a conceptual gap between codified control and accountable power. A normative recalibration is therefore required one that constitutionalizes limits on investigative authority, embeds judicial review, and restores proportionality as the moral center of criminal procedure.