“Hot” LED screen advertising stories related to national security

This is an issue raised by businesses and management agencies at the seminar “Gathering opinions on the Law Project amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Advertising Law”, held on April 26 in the city. HCM.

Businesses want to remove “advertising product announcements” from LED screens

In Article 28 of the Draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Advertising drafted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, there is an amendment in Clause 2, adding Clause 2a to stipulate: “Organizations and individuals wishing to conduct advertising on specialized advertising screens must send directly, online or by post 01 set of advertising product notification documents to the competent advertising agency. of the local area before advertising”.

According to Mr. Nguyen Thanh Dao, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Advertising Association, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Advertising Association, current law does not regulate the licensing of LED screens. The new draft law includes the content “notification of advertising products” as a form of asking for permission, which is very inadequate. Businesses will take more time and effort to prepare documents, while advertising violations on LED screens are very few, not “hot” spots. What the law has already cleared up should not be tied up, this is in the spirit of administrative reform.

Sharing the same opinion, Mr. Dang Quoc Tuan, Director of Goldsun Southern Joint Stock Company, said that in “notifying advertising products” on electronic boards (LED screens), the drafting committee of the Law Project needs to consider and should quit. The advertising industry is going up, but if you add administrative procedures, it’s like it’s coming to a standstill. In countries around the world, especially in the Asian region, advertising content on electronic billboards can be changed hundreds of times a day and they have the right to do that, in Vietnam, as Goldsun is setting it at 16 time. But now businesses have to report and apply for a product content notification license from the management agency, it will be very difficult to compete with international online platforms such as YouTube, Facebook…

Mr. Nguyen Quang Nhut, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City Advertising Association, Director of Shojiki Advertising Joint Stock Company, raised problems with LED screen advertising, an advertising TVC can be up to 500MB, with networks If there are 100-200 large advertisements per day on this screen, can the technological infrastructure of departments and branches meet the need for businesses to submit notices or will they be congested? Is it okay to just submit a notification photo?

According to him, to apply for an electronic advertising screen, currently, businesses must go through 7 departments and the City People’s Committee for approval before being allowed to do so. Therefore, these ads will not contain violating content and will be approved very carefully. If the above regulations are introduced, somewhere advertising businesses that find it difficult will cut back on this form of advertising to switch to online, where foreign businesses are dominating, domestic businesses will lose a part. revenue.

Worry about “sensitive” advertising affecting national security

Regarding LED screen advertising, Mr. Do Kim Dung, Director of the Vietnam Advertising Research & Training Institute (ARTI Vietnam), raised a very troubling issue. That is, advertising content posted on LED screens will be very dangerous if out of control.

According to Mr. Do Kim Dung, 10 years ago, Japanese partners said that advertising LED screens on buses in this country did not have to be installed individually but could be adjusted in one place; Or a supermarket billboard can use a camera to determine the age of the viewer to provide appropriate advertising; It’s all done by AI.

With today’s developed technology, especially AI, a business sitting at home can still control video clips on all LED screens. Suppose a hacker attacks and inserts reactionary content, how should we handle it? This problem is entirely possible in the next 5-7 years. How to control video clip patterns on hundreds of thousands of LED screens nationwide.

To solve the above problem, according to Mr. Tran Viet Tan, Vice President of the Vietnam Advertising Association, currently, the form of LED screen management is 100% offline, but in the next 3-5 years “it will not be possible to keep climbing.” Each electric pole plugs USB into the screens.” Therefore, the long-term solution is that businesses providing advertising services can cooperate with network operators such as Viettel, CMC, VNPT, FPT in transmission work, because these units have full security technology. secret so that hackers cannot violate it. As for content approval licenses, units can cooperate with television stations to ask them to censor and consider it as a preliminary part.

On the contrary, Mr. Dang Quoc Tuan, Director of Goldsun Southern Joint Stock Company, said that in fact, without using online, advertising stories on LED screens can be handled. Goldsun currently has about 10,000 screens in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi and only needs 20 employees to manage them all.

This company’s decision to use offline to replace advertising content on LED screens is to ensure confidentiality, allowing weekly time to check whether the system is running, whether it is broadcasting enough, and taking photos to report to customers. row. With this method, you don’t have to worry about being hacked and can protect the jobs of many families. The online issue will take place in 5-7 years, according to Mr. Dang Quoc Tuan, at that time if the need is real, it can be amended and supplemented later. Goldsun agreed to still work offline because so far there have been no problems.

Concluding this issue, Mr. Hoang Minh Thai, Director of the Legal Department, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said that regarding the story of online/offline LED screen advertising, to be online will require a lot of research. research, impact assessment and especially the opinions of competent authorities, including the police.

According to Mr. Hoang Minh Thai, hackers attacking the Internet are completely different from hackers attacking online advertising systems on big screens. Businesses have the idea of ​​placing their entire fortune on those signs, but this is a social impact; If a bad situation occurs, what will be the consequences?

“For example, on September 2, hackers running an advertisement with “sensitive” content would be extremely dangerous for national security, so by law there will be a roadmap for advertising on online LED screens/ offline,” Mr. Thai said.