The Protection And Rational Utilization Of Personal Information

With the appearance of computer and the popularization of Internet, the information society has closer contact with and more significant impact on our daily life, in which, the protection and rational utilization of personal information is a new subject. It is obvious that the rational utilization of personal information facilitates administration and raises its efficiency, and the collection, use, handling of personal information will definitely benefit the data controllers, but it is a common phenomenon that abuse or improper use of personal information infringes personal interests. Now, many countries attach great importance to the protection of personal information. The incomplete statistics show that more than fifty countries and regions in the world have legislated to protect personal information, and it has already become an inevitable trend to strengthen the protection to personal information through legislation. Based on Japan's Personal Information Protection Law executed on the April 1st, 2005, this paper thoroughly discusses the problem of protection and rational utilization of personal information. The reasons why Japan's personal information protection Law is selected lie in following aspects. Firstly, the law has just been put into effect for a short time, so it is not introduced into China in detail. Secondly, having referred to the legislative experience of European Union, America, German, the law has possessed the characteristics of different legislative patterns, and the legislative style also has its original traits. Thirdly, the relevant regulations on procession of personal information by the administrative agencies are important contents of personal information protection, and the administrative law of our country referred to those of Japan and Taiwan region, so introduction of Japan's Personal Information Protection Law is also helpful for research on relevant issues in administrative law. Now, Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China has been submitted, the author hopes to provide the reference to lawmaking of Personal Information Protection Law of the People's Republic of China. The first part of this paper is about the legislation background of the protection of personal information. First, the protection of personal information is a new topic brought by the development of information society. Then the protection of personal information has its constitutional origin that it is a specific aspect for human rights protection, and in civil law, the general personality right protection is its theoretical foundation. Finally, the legislative examples in major countries, organizations as well as the Taiwan region and the Hong Kong SAR are introduced and compared with Japan's Personal Information Protection Law. The second part of this paper introduces the legislative evolution of Japan's Personal Information Protection Law. Japan's Personal Information Protection Law is also controversial and strongly opposed before its implementation. Japan has passed the Law on protecting Automatic Processing Personal Information Possessed by Executive Agencies, which was mainly about the duties of administrative agencies on protecting personal information. Immediately after that, Japanese legislature drew up four other relevant bills, which stipulated the duties of ordinary data controllers as well, but they were vetoed by national congress. At last, the amended bills were passed after near 80-hour intense discussion. The five relevant bills are《Personal Information Protection Law》 , 《Law on Protecting Personal Information Possessed by Administrative Agencies》 , 《 Law on Protecting Personal Information Possessed by Independent Administrative Legal Persons》,《Law on Openness of Information· Establishment of Protection of Personal Information Investigation Committee 》 , 《Act on Relevant Laws Concerning Implementation of the Personal Information Protection by administrative Agencies》. The reason why Japan enacts five laws is that different subjects of duty including...