On The Protection Of The Right Of Privacy From Office Of The Privacy Commissioner For Personal Date, Hong Kong

As establishment of information society and modern social security systems, the age of information has come, and information has become the focus of privacy protection. The development of Internet has further highlighted the importance of information interests out of the whole picture of privacy right. And meanwhile, the development of Internet makes collecting and illegally spreading personal data easier, personal data more valuable economically, and even more unstoppable illegal or excessive personal data use and collections. Countries use the power to build huge personal data processing systems to monitor daily lives of the people. "State power has presented itself with a extending trend under the new form of society, and expansion of state power always means shrinking of personal autonomy." Individuals are weak while facing state power. In order to confront forced intervention of state power, individuals need to control their own information, including requests to read, revised and elimination. Hence, the focus of privacy protection has evolved to confront the state power and content of information privacy.With the evolutions of human society's material production, and the development of the human right, privacy still protected by civil law from a single continental legal system will be obvious confined. The contemporary expansion of state power and the rapid development of high-tech have created strong demand of the public law protection of privacy. People have understood the basic human rights of privacy become clearer. Although tort law for privacy protection is still important for protecting benefit and dignity between equal principal, public law protection for privacy is more important.At present, the "People's Republic of China Government Information Disclosure Ordinance" has not yet implemented. The collection, management, use, sharing, protection, and disclosure of government information will face many problems. To a certain extent, this can influence even harm the privacy of citizens, which we have taken in concern for always. At this stage, we should pay more attention to the protection of citizen privacy, because it's the foundation of constitutional democracy success that the privacy rights of citizens are respected. All countries legalizing administrative information disclosure needs to judge which one should be the most concerned value, administrative information disclosure or privacy protection. Solving conflicts between the right to know and privacy has become widespread concern. The situation more and more complicated. In particular, because of the popularization and use of computer networks, personal data abuse, disclosure by ultra vires, and the loss of information appeared frequently; behaviors that collecting or disclosure of personal data by administrative departments or non- administrative departments led to a new form of privacy violation. Therefore, it's important to assort between privacy and information disclosure, in the legalization progress of administrative information disclosure.This paper is divided into five parts. The first part focuses on the complexity and the comprehensiveness of the privacy protection. This section pointed out that the protection of privacy is a comprehensive and diversified issue. It starts from the understanding and summarization on privacy and Privacy of the common law and civil law, combined with the judicial practice of different countries, and concluded that, the protection of privacy is affected by all political factors, economic factors, and cultural factors, and presents a complex features. The complexity of Privacy protection is mainly reflected in two aspects: Firstly, due to the rapid developments and extensive applications of science and technology, privacy protection needs not only the traditional means of protection, but also needs high-tech support and assistance. Secondly, coordination of the conflicts between the right to privacy and the right to know has also presented the complexity of privacy protection. The comprehensiveness of the privacy protection is represented by diversity of violations of the main body of right of privacy, as well as the inter-departmental relief after those violations. Turn out, the protection of privacy can not be resolved by a single, simple adjustment and relief. What we need is inter-departmental co-operations and efforts and achieved by using integrated methods and technologies to assort benefit conflicts between parties. We should view and resolve this kind of comprehensive and complex issues from diversified perspectives.The second part discussed in detail of the constitution of "Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance" and the establishment of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data(The following abbreviations for the PCPD). First of all, it explains the necessity of the constitution of "Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance" from a legislative background, and cites the six international practices in the "Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance". Secondly, it introduces PCPD as being an independent legal organization and having broad authorities of investigation and enforcement, which is established to ensure that all sectors of the community comply with the "Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance ". Finally, it introduces briefly the nature and status of PCPD, prepared for analyzing the conditions of the Office's functions in later parts.The third part is detailed descriptions of the mode of function of PCPD, which includes six aspects: the organization, work methods, duties and authorities, external relations, ways of the exercise of the authorities, and the government management of legal organization. Firstly, it introduces in detail the organizational structure and duties of departments of the Office; Secondly, it introduces procedures for handling complaints and the contents of training promotions of the PCPD; Thirdly, it introduces the duties and authorities of PCPD with large numbers of specific examples and statistical data; Fourthly, it explains the PCPD's nature of public-operated legal organization by analyzing relationships among the government and The Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong and other advisory committees; Fifthly, it introduces ways of exercise of the authorities of PCPD through the statistical data which reflect how the PCPD handle the public enquiries and complaints, and the functions and role of mediation and investigation by PCPD. Sixthly, it introduces the independent and the flexibility of privacy protection by PCPD once again through the demonstration of the government management of legal organization.The fourth part analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of PCPD's functions, and having conclusions by explaining and analyzing the characteristics and importance of PCPD, the work methods of PCPD, and the ways of the exercise of the authorities. First of all, it concludes following advantages: firstly, it's in favor of introducing the concept of privacy protection to the whole society; secondly, PCPD has a practical monitor procedure and complaint system; thirdly, promotions and specific works carried out by PCPD can further strengthen the follow-up and implementation of privacy protection legislation. At second place, PCPD's work is limited by the boundary of "Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance" protections, which lead to following disadvantages: firstly, PCPD only has limited independency; secondly, privacy protection legislation still needs to be improved; thirdly, PCPD still facing problems such as weak monitoring and difficulties of assort conflicts among benefits.The fifth part, linking China's status quo, concludes possible references for China under present specific circumstances. After analyzing and summarizing by author, possible conclusions are the followings. First, establish practical legislations of privacy protection; secondly, as long-term plans, form a execution organization of privacy protection, by taking into concern the political system renovation of our country and the government management model; thirdly, logically separate the execution organization from the legislative, administrative, judicial institutions and delegate authorities to the execution organization to finally ensure the privacy of citizens are not violated.