A Study On The Propertization Of Personal Information

Personal information refers to information by which one can identify certain natural person directly or indirectly. It not only bears the value in protecting personal dignity, but also embodies commercial values, or property values, whereas such values have not emerged until recent years with the rapid development of network and information technology. Commercial exploitation of personal information contributes greatly to business advance, especially the advance of electronic commerce. However, traditional civil law system merely involved personal information within the confine of personhood, and failed to completely recognize the property values in personal information, which is flawed both in theory and in practice, making it unable to strike a balance between personal information protection and the aim to promote healthy development of the personal information market. Meanwhile the lack of effective regulation also leads to bunches of personal information abuses. This article first points to the above flaws and on this basis, demonstrates main theories and legislation in and abroad in a comparative angle, and exposes discussion of the implication, justification as well as structure inside the personal information property approach.This article is in four parts apart from Introduction:The first part is an outline of personal information, which introduces some basic factors therein such as definition, characteristics and classification.The second part describes current status of the use of personal information. This part begins with the types and situation of personal information exploitation, and then reveals social and legal issues incurred by information abuse, and at last, with regard to insufficiencies in traditional approaches, leads to the necessity of propertizationThe third part consists of arguments justifying the propertization of personal information. It analyzes leading theories related thereto including personhood theory in legal terms, public goods theory and market failure arguments in economic terms, whereby establishes theoretical grounds for personal information property system.The last part constitutes a framework of propertization approach. Since the system broadly involves ethic, economic and legislation fields and contains massive institutional details, this part is limited to its principal factors. It first defines personal information property and depicts its features, and next elaborates on substantive sections in such property system. And in the end, it refers to related theory and legislation of foreign countries featuring that of the US, and puts forward some advices around the operation of personal information property in our country.