From womb to watchlist: Vietnam’s emerging social engineering experiment

Something unsettling is quietly taking shape in Vietnam’s policy world, and it doesn’t feel theoretical anymore. It feels personal.

On one side, the government is talking about identifying an “elite” group of people almost from the moment they are born. On the other, the Ministry of Public Security is developing a system to score citizens based on their digital behavior. Each idea on its own raises eyebrows. Together, they begin to describe a life path where the state decides who you are before you’ve had a chance to decide for yourself.

Imagine a child being labeled early on—marked as promising, ordinary, or unremarkable—not because of effort or choice, but because a system has decided they fit a certain mold. This is the logic behind the proposed “elite human resources” program. It echoes an old idea: that society works best when the state sorts people into categories and invests only in those it considers worthy. Equality stops being a right and starts feeling like a privilege.

As that child grows up, the scrutiny doesn’t fade—it deepens. Through the VNeID digital identity system, adults would be scored and classified as “positive,” “basic,” or “unranked,” based on behavior tracked through data. From birth to adulthood, the message is the same: your value is measured, recorded, and judged.

Seen this way, early “elite” selection is bias at the starting line, and citizen scoring is the reward—or punishment—at the end. Your access to opportunities, services, and protection depends less on the law and more on how well you conform to invisible rules written into an algorithm. The promise that all citizens are equal before the law slowly fades into something conditional and fragile.

This model isn’t homegrown. It closely mirrors systems already operating in China. And that raises a deeper concern beyond social control: who actually owns and runs the technology behind it?

Vietnam has often relied on inexpensive, ready-made solutions to modernize quickly. That makes it likely—almost inevitable—that the hardware and software behind such a massive system would come from China. In today’s world, data is power. Handing over the infrastructure that stores and processes a nation’s most sensitive information isn’t just a technical decision; it’s a strategic one.

The danger becomes even clearer when biometric data enters the picture. Fingerprints. Facial scans. Iris patterns. And potentially, DNA. This isn’t abstract information—it’s the most intimate data a person has. If the biological data of nearly 100 million people is stored in systems that could be accessed, copied, or exploited, Vietnam isn’t just risking privacy. It’s risking its future independence.

Genetic data is especially alarming. Around the world, experts are already warning about how biology and technology can be weaponized. If a nation’s genetic profile is exposed or sold, the consequences could last generations.

Even if all of this were ignored, the project still runs into a very real, very physical problem: electricity.

The Ministry of Public Security envisions a giant National Data Center to process AI and Big Data for the entire population. That kind of system doesn’t run on ideas—it runs on power. Gigawatts of it. The equivalent of a nuclear power plant.

But Vietnam is already struggling to keep the lights on. Factories in the north face rolling blackouts. Businesses lose money. Workers lose hours. So where will the power come from? Will homes go dark so servers can stay lit? Will manufacturing slow down to keep surveillance systems running?

In other countries, communities push back against data centers because they drain water, electricity, and land. In Vietnam, these “mega-projects” are announced with little discussion of cost or consequence. That silence suggests either a worrying lack of planning—or a system more focused on absorbing budgets than serving the public.

What’s most alarming is how fast all of this is being pushed forward. Framed as “urgent,” these initiatives are racing ahead without serious public debate or parliamentary scrutiny. Rules are being written first, questions asked later.

Why the rush? Why is something that touches human rights, national security, and the economy being decided behind closed doors? Is Vietnam being pressured to plug into a wider surveillance framework before its people can fully understand what’s at stake?

By building this vast digital machine, the Ministry of Public Security risks becoming a state within the state. And in that gamble, ordinary people stand to lose the most: freedom reduced to a score, public money funneled into control rather than growth, and national security tied to foreign technology.

Vietnam is trying to build a 21st-century system of digital control on a 20th-century power grid—using tools that may ultimately answer to someone else.

And the people expected to live inside that system were never really asked if they wanted it.