Concerning The Protection Of The Right To Privacy Under The Network Environment

Privacy rights are one of the fundamental rights of human beings, the protection of which is to achieve the harmony of individuals and society as well as social stability. It is widely acknowledged that the Internet is a double-edged sword, bringing new opportunities and hopes for the mankind, but simultaneously new troubles and problems. Inevitably, this constitutes graver challenges for the protection of privacy in the network environment. With the development of market economy, our citizens’consciousness of civil rights begins to be rejuvenated, which makes the protection of their own rights increasingly urgent. As a result, privacy rights, as one of fundamental rights of human beings, are placed with great emphasis. Nevertheless, due to the openness, common sharing of resources, convenience of obtaining information created by the Internet, the traditional boundary of privacy is broken in terms of space and time, creating a series of new problems for the privacy rights in the network environment, for instance, the varying of infringement act, the widening of infringement subjects, the deteriorating of infringement consequences. In particular, the ever degrading of disputes concerning privacy infringement in recent years constitutes severe challenges for our theoretical studies and legislature process, even to the judicial process. Therefore, how to better preserve privacy rights is not only an urgent quest of every individual in the society, but also originates from the inevitability of current economic development.This paper sets out to analyze the new problems facing the protection of privacy rights based on its historical development and the impacts of Internet on privacy rights, thus opening up the discussions about such issues as the doctrine of liability fixation, constitutive requirements, defense of infringements. At the same time, it analyzes the existing problems of protecting privacy rights in the network environment through close observation of the legislations in other countries under similar circumstances. Finally, from the legislative and judicial perspectives, we offer our own reflections and proposals in order to perfect our laws and regulations concerning this issue, in hope of contributing some thoughts on our country’s future legislature.