The Criminal Law Protection For Personal Information Of Citizens

It has become much more outstanding that the role of personal information played in daily communications, as the informatization era’s coming. A following ascent of personal information infringements, such as illegally collecting, fetching, leaking, utilizing and falsifying the information, however, has not just disturbed people’s normal life but even let the personal safety and properties under risks. As one of the most effective approaches to ensure and protect rights of citizens, the Criminal Law shall play a role in securing personal information of citizens as well. Behaviors to infringe personal information had been included in the scope of regulation for the first time in light of The Amendment to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China (VII) authorized in2009, meanwhile crimes of illegally offering, selling and procuring personal information of citizens had been listed. Deficiencies, however, still exist in clauses related to personal information protection of citizens in the amendment. Ambiguous phrasing of the clauses has induced controversies regarding application of the laws. Under the background, it has practical significance to research into amending clauses of the Criminal Law for securing personal information of citizens.There are four sections constituted this article, it was arranged as the first that a general overview in respect of citizens’ personal information, which will highlight the finer points of citizens’ personal information, distinctions among relevant terms and the states quo of personal information infringements in China; The following will take a close look at questions in the air referred to the seventh clause of The Amendment to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China (VII) after an introduction of provisions for securing citizens’ personal information in the current Chinese criminal laws; The third section attempts to discuss several possible circumstances or behaviors which in fact will violate personal information of citizens but have not been restrained by the clauses in the current criminal laws; The last section is the author’s proposals for enhancing the Criminal Law’s role played in securing personal information of citizens, which mainly include a modified threshold to judge subjects of the crime of offering or selling personal information of citizens illegally, more incriminations for behaviors to infringe personal information of citizens, an exploration of explicit standards for measuring a’serious circumstance’ in the seventh clause of The Amendment to the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China (VII)...