The Protection And Restriction Of The Right To Privacy And Right To Know

The conflicts between rights are quite common now. The right of privacy and the right to know are one pair of conflicts. The right of privacy allows individual to have the right of protecting his personal information while the right to know, on the other hand, endows the individual to know any kind of information relating to his interests. In essence, the right of privacy limits individual's right to acquire information but the right to know grants individual's right to obtain it. With the development of economy and people's sense of law, no matter it is within the bound of public law or privacy law, the conflicts between these two rights become more and more acute. Law and regulations are needed to solve it urgently. However, the current law system in China can't meet this requirement.Based on current domestic and foreign laws, this thesis starts from the historical origins of the right of privacy and the right to know, discussing the origin and essence of the conflicts between the two rights and offers principles and methods of negotiating conflicts from both public and private law angles. Taking infectious diseases as examples, the thesis explores how to balance relationships between the two rights in operation to ensture the fully implementation of them. At last, the thesis analyzes related domestic laws and rules on infectious diseases and other issues, offering practical amendments and suggestions.