Legal Protection Of Personal Information

Personal information has developed itself into the most important asset in the information era. With increasing understanding of its importance, its security has become a hot tricky issue. State should protect personal information through legislation. By introducing German laws, this paper brings new perspective for China to legally protect personal information.In chapter one, differences of confusing concepts are explained, personal information concept introduced, and the author’s standpoint given. To protect personal information the author believes in discarding privacy-rights based American model for German uniform legislation model. Based on general rights of personality, through cases, Germany has developed rights of self-determination of own information, new rights enshrined in Constitution. As a new development of general rights of personality, rights of self-determination of own information has safeguarded personal information against illegal intrusion by the state and a third party and enables citizens rights to control their personal information.Chapter two and chapter three give a full picture of German legislation on personal information protection. In chapter two, the author elaborates on the legislative history of personal information protection in Germany. Against the backdrop of history, the author explains the essence behind the legislation. In a chronological manner, the author introduces the history of Bundesdatenschutzgeset. Chapter three is focused on Bundesdatenschutzgeset, including the structure, contents, basic principles, and obligations of the2009Bundesdatenschutzgesetsprescirbes.After detailed elaboration on German legislation, the author puts the perspective into Chinese legislation. In chapter four, with data and charts, the author directly analyses current status of Chinese legislative protection of personal information and illustrates current direct and indirect personal information protection for Chinese citizens. The author suggests import general-rights-of-personality based German model and make rights of self-determination of own information basic rights for the personal information protection issue. In chapter five, from the perspectives of civil law and constitution, the author justifies the legalization of rights of self-determination of own information in China. In the last chapter, chapter six, the author discusses Chinese model for personal information protection. After comparing the decentralized American legislation model and centralized German one, the author proposes to establish a protection model with Chinese characteristics centered on uniform legislation and also self-disciplined by industry itself.